Walt Whitman - The Complete Works of Walt Whitman

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?

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

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.