LITMIR.BIZ

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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

       Texan ranch,

       Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving

       their big proportions,)

       Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands

       and welcome to drink and meat,

       A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,

       A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,

       Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,

       A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,

       Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

      I resist any thing better than my own diversity,

       Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,

       And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

      (The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,

       The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,

       The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)

      17

       These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they

       are not original with me,

       If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,

       If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,

       If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.

      This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,

       This the common air that bathes the globe.

      18

       With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,

       I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for

       conquer’d and slain persons.

      Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?

       I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit

       in which they are won.

      I beat and pound for the dead,

       I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

      Vivas

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