high and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and
     yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the
     clefts of streets.

These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
The men and women I saw were all near to me,
Others the same — others who look back on me because I
     look'd forward to them,
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day, and to- night.)

What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not — distance avails not, and place
     avails not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in
     the waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me.

In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they
     came upon me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had receiv'd identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I
     knew I should be of my body.

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious,
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in
     reality meagre?
Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd,
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish,
     not wanting,
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of
     these wanting,
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young
     men as they saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent
     leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public
     assembly, yet never told them a word,
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing,
     gnawing, sleeping,
Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great
     as we like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

Closer yet I approach you,
What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you — I
     laid in my stores in advance,
I consider'd long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking
     at you now, for all you cannot see me?

Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than
     mast-hemm'd Manhattan?
River and sunset and scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide?
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the
     twilight, and the belated lighter?

What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and
     with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my
     nighest name as I approach?