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 money-makers,
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
Saskatchewan 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 shop