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 supperfires 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&emdash;me in my room&emdash;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&emdash;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&emdash;on
the
firm earth, the lands, my lands,
O lands! all so dear to me&emdash;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 Arkansas, 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&emdash;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&emdash;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&emdash;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&emdash;and no
less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta
in itself,
Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands&emdash;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
&emdash;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?
1860 1881