swimmers and divers cools the warm
noon,
Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the
walnut-
tree over the wall,
Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired
leaves,
Through the salt-
lick or orange glade, or under conical firs,
Through the gymnasium, through the curtain'd saloon,
through
the office or public hall;
Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd
with the new and
old,
Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome,
Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts
off her bonnet and
talks melodiously,
Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church,
Pleas'd
with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist
preacher, impress'd seriously at the camp-meeting;
Looking
in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole
forenoon, flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate
glass,
Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn'd up to the
clouds, or down a lane or along the beach,
My
right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I
in the middle;
Coming home with the silent and
dark-cheek'd bush-boy,
(behind me he rides at the drape of the day,)
Far from the settlements studying
the print of animals' feet,
or the moccasin print,
By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish
patient,
Nigh the coffin'd corpse when all is still, examining with a
candle;
Voyaging to every port to dicker
and adventure,
Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and flickle as any,
Hot toward one I hate, ready
in my madness to knife him,
Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from
me a long
while,
Walking the old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God
by my side,
Speeding through space,
speeding through heaven and the
stars,
Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and
the
diameter of eighty thousand miles,
Speeding with tail'd meteors, throwing fire-balls like the rest,
Carrying
the crescent child that carries its own full mother in
its belly,
Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,
Backing
and filling, appearing and disappearing,
I tread day and night such roads.
I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product,
And look at quintillions ripen'd and look at quintillions
green.
I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul,
My course runs below the soundings of plummets.
I help myself to material and immaterial,
No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me.
I anchor my ship for a little while only,
My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns
to
me.
I go hunting polar furs and the seal, leaping chasms with a
pike-pointed staff, clinging to topples of brittle
and blue.
I ascend to the foretruck,
I take my place late at night in the crow's-nest,
We sail the arctic sea, it is plenty
light enough,
Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the
wonderful beauty,
The enormous
masses of ice pass me and I pass them, the
scenery is plain in all directions,
The white-topt mountains
show in the distance, I fling out
my fancies toward them,
We are approaching some great battle-field in
which we are
soon to be engaged,
We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass
with
still feet and caution,
Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin'd city,
The blocks and fallen
architecture more than all the living
cities of the globe.
I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires,
I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with
the bride
myself,
I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.
My voice is the wife's voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,
They fetch my man's body up dripping
and drown'd.
I understand the large hearts of heroes,
The courage of present times and all times,
How the skipper saw
the crowded and rudderless wreck of
the steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm,
How
he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful
of days and faithful of nights,
And chalk'd
in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we
will not desert you;