LITMIR.BIZ

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as he did in the cot in his mother's

       bed-room;)

       The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,

       He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript;

       The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,

       What is removed drops horribly in a pail;

       The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by

       the bar-room stove,

       The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat,

       the gate-keeper marks who pass,

       The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do

       not know him;)

       The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,

       The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their

       rifles, some sit on logs,

       Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;

       The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,

       As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them

       from his saddle,

       The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their

       partners, the dancers bow to each other,

       The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the

       musical rain,

       The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,

       The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins and

       bead-bags for sale,

       The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut

       eyes bent sideways,

       As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for

       the shore-going passengers,

       The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it

       off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots,

       The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne

       her first child,

       The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the

       factory or mill,

       The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's lead

       flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering

       with blue and gold,

       The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his

       desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,

       The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him,

       The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions,

       The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the white

       sails sparkle!)

       The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray,

       The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser higgling

       about the odd cent;)

       The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock

       moves slowly,

       The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips,

       The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and

       pimpled neck,

       The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to

       each other,

       (Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)

       The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great

       Secretaries,

       On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms,

       The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold,

       The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle,

       As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the

       jingling of loose change,

       The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the

       roof, the masons are calling for mortar,

       In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers;

       Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather'd, it

       is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!)

       Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows,

       and the winter-grain falls in the ground;

       Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in

       the frozen surface,

       The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep

       with his axe,

       Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees,

       Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through

       those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,

       Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw,

       Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons

       around them,

       In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after

       their day's sport,

       The city sleeps and the country sleeps,

       The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,

       The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;

       And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,

       And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,

       And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.

       16

       I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,

       Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,

       Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,

       Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff

       that is fine,

       One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the

       largest the same,

       A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and

       hospitable down by the Oconee I live,

       A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest

       joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,

       A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin

       leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,

       A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;

       At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen

       off Newfoundland,

       At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking,

       At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the

      

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