The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy
     and weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured
     him,
And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and
     bruis'd feet,
And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave
     him some coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and
     ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and
     pass'd north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the
     corner.

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the
     window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from
     their long hair,
Little streams pass'd all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge
     to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and
     bending arch,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.

The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his
     knife at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great
     heat in the fire.

From the cinder-strew'd threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive
     arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand
     so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block
     swags underneath on its tied-over chain,
The negro that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady
     and tall he stands pois'd on one leg on the string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens
     over his hip-band,
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of
     his hat away from his forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the
     black of his polish'd and perfect limbs.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not
     stop there,
I go with the team also.

In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well
     as forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object
     missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.