yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering
     moccasins and bead-bags for sale,
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with
     half-shut eyes bent sideways,

As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is
     thrown for the shore-going passengers,
The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister
     winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the
     knots,
The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago
     borne her first child,
The clean- hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine
     or in the factory or mill,
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the
     reporter's lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the signpainter
     is lettering with blue and gold,
The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts
     at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,
The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers
     follow him,
The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions,
The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the
     white sails sparkle!)
The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray,
The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser
     higgling about the odd cent;)
The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the
     clock moves slowly,
The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips,
The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her
     tipsy and pimpled neck,
The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and
     wink to each other,
(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)
The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the
     great Secretaries,
On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with
     twined arms,
The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in
     the hold,
The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his
     cattle,

As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by
     the jingling of loose change,
The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the
     roof, the masons are calling for mortar,
In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the
     laborers;
Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is
     gather'd, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes
     of cannon and small arms!)
Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the
     mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground;
Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole
     in the frozen surface,
The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter
     strikes deep with his axe,
Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton- wood
     or pecan-trees,
Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through
     those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or
     Altamahaw,
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and
     great-grandsons around them,
In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers
     after their day's sport,
The city sleeps and the country sleeps,
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,
The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband
     sleeps by his wife;
And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff
     that is fine,

One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same
     and the largest the same,
A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant
     and hospitable down by the Oconee I live,
A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the
     limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,
A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin
     leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,
A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier,
     Badger, Buck-eye;
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with
     fishermen off Newfoundland,
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and
     tacking,
At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine,
     or the Texan ranch,
Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners,
     (loving their big proportions,)
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake
     hands and welcome to drink and meat,
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.