BOOK VIII

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

       1
  Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
  Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face
      to face.

  Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious
      you are to me!
  On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning
      home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
  And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more
      to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

       2
  The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,
  The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated, every
      one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,
  The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
  The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on
      the walk in the street and the passage over the river,
  The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,
  The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,
  The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

  Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,
  Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
  Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the
      heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
  Others will see the islands large and small;
  Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half
      an hour high,
  A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others
      will see them,
  Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the
      falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

       3
  It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
  I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many
      generations hence,
  Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
  Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
  Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the
      bright flow, I was refresh'd,
  Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift
      current, I stood yet was hurried,
  Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the
      thick-stemm'd pipes of steamboats, I look'd.

  I too many and many a time cross'd the river of old,
  Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air
      floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
  Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left
      the rest in strong shadow,
  Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south,
  Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
  Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
  Look'd at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my
      head in the sunlit water,
  Look'd on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
  Look'd on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
  Look'd toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,
  Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
  Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,
  The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,
  The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender
      serpentine pennants,
  The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilothouses,
  The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,
  The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
  The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the
      frolic-some crests and glistening,
  The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the
      granite storehouses by the docks,
  On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on
      each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
  On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning
      high and glaringly into the night,
  Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow
      light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.

       4
  These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
  I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
  The men and women I saw were all near to me,
  Others the same—others who look back on me because I look'd forward
      to them,
  (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

       5
  What is it then between us?
  What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

  Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
  I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
  I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the
      waters around it,
  I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
  In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
  In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
  I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
  I too had receiv'd identity by my body,
  That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I
      should be of my body.

       6
  It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
  The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
  The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious,
  My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
  Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
  I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
  I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
  Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd,
  Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
  Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
  The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me.
  The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,

  Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting,
  Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
  Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as
      they saw me approaching or passing,
  Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of
      their flesh against me as I sat,
  Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet
      never told them a word,
  Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,
  Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
  The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
  Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

       7
  Closer yet I approach you,
  What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my
      stores in advance,
  I consider'd long and seriously of you before you were born.

  Who was to know what should come home to me?
  Who knows but I am enjoying this?
  Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you
      now, for all you cannot see me?

       8
  Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than
      mast-hemm'd Manhattan?
  River and sunset and scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide?
  The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the
      twilight, and the belated lighter?
  What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I
      love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as approach?
  What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that
      looks in my face?
  Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?

  We understand then do we not?
  What I promis'd without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
  What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not
      accomplish is accomplish'd, is it not?

       9
  Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
  Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves!
  Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the
      men and women generations after me!
  Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
  Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
  Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
  Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
  Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!
  Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my
      nighest name!
  Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
  Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one
      makes it!
  Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be
      looking upon you;
  Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet
      haste with the hasting current;
  Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
  Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all
      downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
  Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any
      one's head, in the sunlit water!
  Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail'd
      schooners, sloops, lighters!
  Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower'd at sunset!
  Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at
      nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!
  Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
  You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,
  About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas,
  Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and
      sufficient rivers,
  Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
  Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

  You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,
  We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward,
  Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,
  We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us,
  We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,
  You furnish your parts toward eternity,
  Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.





BOOK IX

Song of the Answerer

       1
  Now list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer,
  To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me.

  A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother,
  How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother?
  Tell him to send me the signs. And I stand before the young man
      face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand and his
      left hand in my right hand,
  And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him that
      answers for all, and send these signs.

  Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and final,
  Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light,
  Him they immerse and he immerses them.

  Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape,
      people, animals,
  The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, (so
      tell I my morning's romanza,)
  All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever money will buy,
  The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably reaps,
  The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building and he
      domiciles there,
  Nothing for any one but what is for him, near and far are for him,
      the ships in the offing,
  The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for anybody.

  He puts things in their attitudes,
  He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love,
  He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and
      sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest
      never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.

  He is the Answerer,
  What can be answer'd he answers, and what cannot be answer'd he
      shows how it cannot be answer'd.

  A man is a summons and challenge,
  (It is vain to skulk—do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you
      hear the ironical echoes?)

  Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride,
      beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction,
  He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and
      down also.

  Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly
      and gently and safely by day or by night,
  He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of
      hands on the knobs.

  His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or
      universal than he is,
  The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.

  Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue,
  He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and
      any man translates, and any man translates himself also,
  One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees
      how they join.

  He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President
      at his levee,
  And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field,
  And both understand him and know that his speech is right.

  He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,
  He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another,
      Here is our equal appearing and new.

  Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
  And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that
      he has follow'd the sea,
  And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,
  And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them,
  No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it or has
      follow'd it,
  No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and
      sisters there.

  The English believe he comes of their English stock,
  A Jew to the Jew he seems, a Russ to the Russ, usual and near,
      removed from none.

  Whoever he looks at in the traveler's coffee-house claims him,
  The Italian or Frenchman is sure, the German is sure, the Spaniard
      is sure, and the island Cuban is sure,
  The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi
      or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or Paumanok sound, claims him.

  The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood,
  The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see
      themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes them,
  They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they are so grown.

       2
  The indications and tally of time,
  Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs,
  Time, always without break, indicates itself in parts,
  What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant company
      of singers, and their words,
  The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark,
      but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark,
  The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,
  His insight and power encircle things and the human race,
  He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the human race.

  The singers do not beget, only the Poet begets,
  The singers are welcom'd, understood, appear often enough, but rare
      has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker
      of poems, the Answerer,
  (Not every century nor every five centuries has contain'd such a
      day, for all its names.)

  The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible
      names, but the name of each of them is one of the singers,
  The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer,
      sweet-singer, night-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer,
      weird-singer, or something else.

  All this time and at all times wait the words of true poems,
  The words of true poems do not merely please,
  The true poets are not followers of beauty but the august masters of beauty;
  The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers
      and fathers,
  The words of true poems are the tuft and final applause of science.

  Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health,
      rudeness of body, withdrawnness,
  Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness, such are some of the words of poems.

  The sailor and traveler underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer,
  The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist, all
      these underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer.

  The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
  They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war,
      peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing else,
  They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
  They do not seek beauty, they are sought,
  Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing,
      fain, love-sick.

  They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,
  They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,
  Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to
      learn one of the meanings,
  To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless
      rings and never be quiet again.





BOOK X

Our Old Feuillage

  Always our old feuillage!
  Always Florida's green peninsula—always the priceless delta of
      Louisiana—always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas,
  Always California's golden hills and hollows, and the silver
      mountains of New Mexico—always soft-breath'd Cuba,
  Always the vast slope drain'd by the Southern sea, inseparable with
      the slopes drain'd by the Eastern and Western seas,
  The area the eighty-third year of these States, the three and a half
      millions of square miles,
  The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main,
      the thirty thousand miles of river navigation,
  The seven millions of distinct families and the same number of dwellings—
      always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches,
  Always the free range and diversity—always the continent of Democracy;
  Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers,
      Kanada, the snows;
  Always these compact lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing
      the huge oval lakes;
  Always the West with strong native persons, the increasing density there,
      the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;
  All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times,
  All characters, movements, growths, a few noticed, myriads unnoticed,
  Through Mannahatta's streets I walking, these things gathering,
  On interior rivers by night in the glare of pine knots, steamboats
      wooding up,
  Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys
      of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke
      and Delaware,
  In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks the
      hills, or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink,
  In a lonesome inlet a sheldrake lost from the flock, sitting on the
      water rocking silently,
  In farmers' barns oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done, they
      rest standing, they are too tired,
  Afar on arctic ice the she-walrus lying drowsily while her cubs play around,
  The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail'd, the farthest polar
      sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes,
  White drift spooning ahead where the ship in the tempest dashes,
  On solid land what is done in cities as the bells strike midnight together,
  In primitive woods the sounds there also sounding, the howl of the
      wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk,
  In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead lake, in summer
      visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming,
  In lower latitudes in warmer air in the Carolinas the large black
      buzzard floating slowly high beyond the tree tops,
  Below, the red cedar festoon'd with tylandria, the pines and
      cypresses growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat,
  Rude boats descending the big Pedee, climbing plants, parasites with
      color'd flowers and berries enveloping huge trees,
  The waving drapery on the live-oak trailing long and low,
      noiselessly waved by the wind,
  The camp of Georgia wagoners just after dark, the supper-fires and
      the cooking and eating by whites and negroes,
  Thirty or forty great wagons, the mules, cattle, horses, feeding
      from troughs,
  The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees,
      the flames with the black smoke from the pitch-pine curling and rising;
  Southern fishermen fishing, the sounds and inlets of North
      Carolina's coast, the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery, the
      large sweep-seines, the windlasses on shore work'd by horses, the
      clearing, curing, and packing-houses;
  Deep in the forest in piney woods turpentine dropping from the
      incisions in the trees, there are the turpentine works,
  There are the negroes at work in good health, the ground in all
      directions is cover'd with pine straw;
  In Tennessee and Kentucky slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge,
      by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking,
  In Virginia, the planter's son returning after a long absence,
      joyfully welcom'd and kiss'd by the aged mulatto nurse,
  On rivers boatmen safely moor'd at nightfall in their boats under
      shelter of high banks,
  Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle,
      others sit on the gunwale smoking and talking;
  Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing
      in the Great Dismal Swamp,
  There are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous
      moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree;
  Northward, young men of Mannahatta, the target company from an
      excursion returning home at evening, the musket-muzzles all
      bear bunches of flowers presented by women;
  Children at play, or on his father's lap a young boy fallen asleep,
      (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!)
  The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the
      Mississippi, he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eyes around;
  California life, the miner, bearded, dress'd in his rude costume,
      the stanch California friendship, the sweet air, the graves one
      in passing meets solitary just aside the horse-path;
  Down in Texas the cotton-field, the negro-cabins, drivers driving
      mules or oxen before rude carts, cotton bales piled on banks
      and wharves;
  Encircling all, vast-darting up and wide, the American Soul, with
      equal hemispheres, one Love, one Dilation or Pride;
  In arriere the peace-talk with the Iroquois the aborigines, the
      calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorsement,
  The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward
      the earth,
  The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and guttural
      exclamations,
  The setting out of the war-party, the long and stealthy march,
  The single file, the swinging hatchets, the surprise and slaughter
      of enemies;
  All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of these States,
      reminiscences, institutions,
  All these States compact, every square mile of these States without
      excepting a particle;
  Me pleas'd, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok's fields,
  Observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies
      shuffling between each other, ascending high in the air,
  The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects, the fall traveler
      southward but returning northward early in the spring,
  The country boy at the close of the day driving the herd of cows and
      shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the roadside,
  The city wharf, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New
      Orleans, San Francisco,
  The departing ships when the sailors heave at the capstan;
  Evening—me in my room—the setting sun,
  The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the
      swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre
      of the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift
      shadows in specks on the opposite wall where the shine is;
  The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners,
  Males, females, immigrants, combinations, the copiousness, the
      individuality of the States, each for itself—the moneymakers,
  Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windlass, lever,
      pulley, all certainties,
  The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,
  In space the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars—on the firm
      earth, the lands, my lands,
  O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whatever it is,) I putting it
      at random in these songs, become a part of that, whatever it is,
  Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping, with the
      myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida,
  Otherways there atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande,
      the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the
      Saskatchawan or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing
      and skipping and running,
  Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I with
      parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and
      aquatic plants,
  Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing
      the crow with its bill, for amusement—and I triumphantly twittering,
  The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh
      themselves, the body of the flock feed, the sentinels outside
      move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to time
      reliev'd by other sentinels—and I feeding and taking turns
      with the rest,
  In Kanadian forests the moose, large as an ox, corner'd by hunters,
      rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his
      fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives—and I, plunging at the
      hunters, corner'd and desperate,
  In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the
      countless workmen working in the shops,
  And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof—and no less in myself
      than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself,
  Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands—my body no more
      inevitably united, part to part, and made out of a thousand
      diverse contributions one identity, any more than my lands
      are inevitably united and made ONE IDENTITY;
  Nativities, climates, the grass of the great pastoral Plains,
  Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil—these me,
  These affording, in all their particulars, the old feuillage to me
      and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the union
      of them, to afford the like to you?
  Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you
      also be eligible as I am?
  How can I but as here chanting, invite you for yourself to collect
      bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of these States?





BOOK XI

A Song of Joys

  O to make the most jubilant song!
  Full of music—full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
  Full of common employments—full of grain and trees.

  O for the voices of animals—O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!
  O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!
  O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

  O the joy of my spirit—it is uncaged—it darts like lightning!
  It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,
  I will have thousands of globes and all time.

  O the engineer's joys! to go with a locomotive!
  To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the
      laughing locomotive!
  To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance.

  O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides!
  The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh
      stillness of the woods,
  The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the forenoon.

  O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys!
  The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool
      gurgling by the ears and hair.

  O the fireman's joys!
  I hear the alarm at dead of night,
  I hear bells, shouts! I pass the crowd, I run!
  The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.

  O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena in
      perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.

  O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is
      capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods.

  O the mother's joys!
  The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the
      patiently yielded life.

  O the of increase, growth, recuperation,
  The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony.

  O to go back to the place where I was born,
  To hear the birds sing once more,
  To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more,
  And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.

  O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast,
  To continue and be employ'd there all my life,
  The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low water,
  The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher;
  I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear,
  Is the tide out? I Join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,
  I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man;
  In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot
      on the ice—I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice,
  Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon,
      my brood of tough boys accompanying me,
  My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no
      one else so well as they love to be with me,
  By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.

  Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots
      where they are sunk with heavy stones, (I know the buoys,)
  O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water as I row
      just before sunrise toward the buoys,
  I pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters are
      desperate with their claws as I take them out, I insert
      wooden pegs in the 'oints of their pincers,

  I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to the shore,
  There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be boil'd
      till their color becomes scarlet.

  Another time mackerel-taking,
  Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the
      water for miles;
  Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the
      brown-faced crew;
  Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced body,
  My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the
      coils of slender rope,
  In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my
      companions.

  O boating on the rivers,
  The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers,
  The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft
      and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,
  The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook
      supper at evening.

  (O something pernicious and dread!
  Something far away from a puny and pious life!
  Something unproved! something in a trance!
  Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.)

  O to work in mines, or forging iron,
  Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the ample
      and shadow'd space,
  The furnace, the hot liquid pour'd out and running.

  O to resume the joys of the soldier!
  To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer—to feel his sympathy!
  To behold his calmness—to be warm'd in the rays of his smile!
  To go to battle—to hear the bugles play and the drums beat!
  To hear the crash of artillery—to see the glittering of the bayonets
      and musket-barrels in the sun!

  To see men fall and die and not complain!
  To taste the savage taste of blood—to be so devilish!
  To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy.

  O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!
  I feel the ship's motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning me,
  I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, There—she blows!
  Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest—we descend,
      wild with excitement,
  I leap in the lower'd boat, we row toward our prey where he lies,
  We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass,
      lethargic, basking,
  I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his
      vigorous arm;
  O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling,
      running to windward, tows me,
  Again I see him rise to breathe, we row close again,
  I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in the wound,
  Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast,
  As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and
      narrower, swiftly cutting the water—I see him die,
  He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then
      falls flat and still in the bloody foam.

  O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all!
  My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard,
  My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.

  O ripen'd joy of womanhood! O happiness at last!
  I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother,
  How clear is my mind—how all people draw nigh to me!
  What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more
      than the bloom of youth?
  What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me?

  O the orator's joys!
  To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the
      ribs and throat,
  To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,
  To lead America—to quell America with a great tongue.

  O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving identity through
      materials and loving them, observing characters and absorbing them,
  My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch,
      reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like,
  The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh,
  My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes,
  Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes
      which finally see,
  Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts,
      embraces, procreates.

  O the farmer's joys!
  Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's,
      Kansian's, Missourian's, Oregonese' joys!
  To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work,
  To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops,
  To plough land in the spring for maize,
  To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall.

  O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore,
  To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore.

  O to realize space!
  The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds,
  To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying
      clouds, as one with them.

  O the joy a manly self-hood!
  To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,
  To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,
  To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,
  To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,
  To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.

  Knowist thou the excellent joys of youth?
  Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and laughing face?
  Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath'd games?
  Joy of sweet music, joy of the lighted ball-room and the dancers?
  Joy of the plenteous dinner, strong carouse and drinking?

  Yet O my soul supreme!
  Knowist thou the joys of pensive thought?
  Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart?
  Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow'd yet proud, the suffering
      and the struggle?
  The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day
      or night?
  Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres Time and Space?
  Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals, the divine wife,
      the sweet, eternal, perfect comrade?
  Joys all thine own undying one, joys worthy thee O soul.

  O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave,
  To meet life as a powerful conqueror,
  No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms,
  To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving
      my interior soul impregnable,
  And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.

  For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating—the joy of death!
  The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments,
      for reasons,
  Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd
      to powder, or buried,
  My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,
  My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications,
      further offices, eternal uses of the earth.

  O to attract by more than attraction!
  How it is I know not—yet behold! the something which obeys none
      of the rest,
  It is offensive, never defensive—yet how magnetic it draws.

  O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!
  To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!
  To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!
  To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with
      perfect nonchalance!
  To be indeed a God!

  O to sail to sea in a ship!
  To leave this steady unendurable land,
  To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the
      houses,
  To leave you O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,
  To sail and sail and sail!

  O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!
  To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!
  To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,
  A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
  A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.