The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then
    toward the earth,
The drama of the scalp- dance enacted with painted faces and
     guttural exclamations,
The setting out of the war-party, the long and stealthy march,
The single file, the swinging hatchets, the surprise and slaughter
     of enemies;
All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of these States,
     reminiscences, institutions,
All these States compact, every square mile of these States
     without excepting a particle;
Me pleas'd, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok's fields,
Observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies shuffling
     between each other, ascending high in the air,
The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects, the fall traveler
     southward but returning northward early in the spring,
The country boy at the close of the day driving the herd of cows
     and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the roadside,
The city wharf, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston,
     New Orleans, San Francisco,
The departing ships when the sailors heave at the capstan;
Evening — me in my room — the setting sun,
The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the
     swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre of
     the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift shadows,
     in specks on the opposite wall where the shine is;
The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners,
Males, females, immigrants, combinations, the copiousness, the
     individuality of the States, each for itself — the money-makers,
Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windlass, lever,
     pulley, all certainties,
The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,
In space the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars — on the
     firm earth, the lands, my lands,

O lands! all so dear to me — what you are, (whatever it is,) I
     putting it at random in these songs, become a part of that,
     whatever it is,
Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping, with the
     myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida,
Otherways there atwixt the banks of the Arkansas, the Rio Grande,
     the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the
     Saskatchewan or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing
     and skipping and running,
Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I with
     parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and
     aquatic plants,
Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the
     crow with its bill, for amusement — and I triumphantly
     twittering,
The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh
     themselves, the body of the flock feed, the sentinels outside
     move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to time
     reliev'd by other sentinels — and I feeding and taking turns
     with the rest,
In Kanadian forests the moose, large as an ox, corner'd by hunters,
     rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his fore-feet,
     the hoofs as sharp as knives — and I, plunging at the
     hunters, corner'd and desperate,
In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the
     countless workmen working in the shops,
And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof — and no
     less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself,
Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands — my
     body no more inevitably united, part to part, and made out
     of a thousand diverse contributions one identity, any more
     than my lands are inevitably united and made ONE IDENTITY;
Nativities, climates, the grass of the great pastoral Plains,
Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil
     — these me,
These affording, in all their particulars, the old feuillage to me
     and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the
     union of them, to afford the like to you?

Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you
     also be eligible as I am?
How can I but as here chanting, invite you for yourself to collect
     bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of these States?

1860 1881