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;


  By PanEris using Melati.

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