For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and
     the mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot
     be shaken away.

The little one sleeps in its cradle,
I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away
     flies with my hand.

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy
     hill,
I peeringly view them from the top.

The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom,
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the
     pistol has fallen.

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of
     the promenaders,
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb,
     the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls,
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous'd mobs,
The flap of the curtain'd litter, a sick man inside borne to the
     hospital,
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly
     working his passage to the centre of the crowd,
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
What groans of over-fed or half-starv'd who fall sunstruck or
     in fits,
What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry
     home and give birth to babes,

What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what
     howls restrain'd by decorum,
Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made,
     acceptances, rejections with convex lips,
I mind them or the show or resonance of them — I come and I
     depart.

The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn
     wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.

I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load,
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and
     timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game,
Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by
     my side.

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
     and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously
     from the deck.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for
     me,
I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a
     good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far
     west, the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly
     smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large
     thick blankets hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins,
     his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held
     his bride by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight
     locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd
     to her feet.