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RED JACKET (FROM ALOFT.)
[Impromptu on Buffalo City's commemoration of and monument to the old Iroquois orator, October 9, 1884.]Upon this scene, this show,
Yielded to-day by fashion, learning, wealth,
(Nor in caprice alone—some grains of deepest
meaning,)
Haply, aloft, (who knows?) from distant
sky-clouds' blended shapes,
As some old tree, or rock or cliff, thrill'd
with its soul,
Product of Nature's sun, stars, earth direct—
a towering human form,
In hunting-shirt of film, arm'd with the
rifle, a half-ironical smile curving its
phantom lips,
Like one of Ossian's ghosts looks down.
WALT WHITMAN. Camden, N.J., Oct. 9, 1884.
Publication Information
"Red Jacket (From Aloft)."
The Philadelphia Press
10 October 1884:
4.
Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).
Whitman Archive ID
per.00069