To behold the day-break!
The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,
The air tastes good to my palate.

Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising,
     freshly exuding,
Scooting obliquely high and low.

Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,
Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.

The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,
The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!

Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill
     me,
If I could not now and always send sun- rise out of me.

We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the
     day-break.

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes
     of worlds.

Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself,
It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically,
Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?

Come now I will not be tantalized, you conceive too much of
     articulation,
Do you not know O speech how the buds beneath you are
     folded?
Waiting in gloom, protected by frost,
The dirt receding before my prophetical screams,
I underlying causes to balance them at last,

My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the
     meaning of all things,
Happiness, (which whoever hears me let him or her set out in
     search of this day.)

My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I
     really am,
Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,
I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward
     you.

Writing and talk do not prove me,
I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,
With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.

Now I will do nothing but listen,
To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute
     toward it.

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of
     flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals.
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or
     following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the
     day and night,
Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh
     of work-people at their meals,
The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the
     sick,
The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips
     pronouncing a death-sentence,
The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves,
     the refrain of the anchor- lifters,
The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of
     swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory
     tinkles and color'd lights,
The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching
     cars,

The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching
     two and two,
(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with
     black muslin.)

I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's heart's complaint,)
I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.