You, whoever you are!       
You daughter or son of England!       
You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!       
You dim-descended, black, divine-soul’d African, large, fine-headed, nobly-form’d, superbly destin’d, on equal terms with me!       
You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!    195   
You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!       
You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!       
You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands!       
You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!       
You neighbor of the Danube!    200   
You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too!       
You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!       
You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek!       
You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!       
You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!    205   
You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding!       
You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the saddle, shooting arrows to the mark!       
You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!       
You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!       
You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk, to stand once on Syrian ground!    210   
You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!       
You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates! you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat!       
You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of Mecca!       
You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb, ruling your families and tribes!       
You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or Lake Tiberias!    215   
You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!       
You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo!       
All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place!       
All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!       
And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me!    220   
And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the same!       
Health to you! Good will to you all—from me and America sent.       
     
Each of us inevitable;       
Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth;       
Each of us allow’d the eternal purports of the earth;    225   
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.       
     
12

You Hottentot with clicking palate! You woolly-hair’d hordes!       
You own’d persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!       
You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes!       
I dare not refuse you—the scope of the world, and of time and space, are upon me.    230   
     
You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your glimmering language and spirituality!       
You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California!       
You dwarf’d Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lapp!       
You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, grovelling, seeking your food!       
You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!    235   
You haggard, uncouth, untutor’d, Bedowee!       
You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!       
You bather bathing in the Ganges!       
You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man!       
You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!    240   
I do not prefer others so very much before you either;       
I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand;       
(You will come forward in due time to my side.)       
     
My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the whole earth;       
I have look’d for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all lands;    245   
I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.       
     
13

O vapors! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant continents, and fallen down there, for reasons;       
I think I have blown with you, O winds;       
O waters, I have finger’d every shore with you.       
     
I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through;    250   
I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the high embedded rocks, to cry thence.       
     
Salut au monde!       
What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities myself;       
All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.       
     
Toward all,    255   
I raise high the perpendicular hand—I make the signal,       
To remain after me in sight forever,       
For all the haunts and homes of men.

75. A Child’s Amaze



SILENT and amazed, even when a little boy,       
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his statements,       
As contending against some being or influence.

76. The Runner



ON a flat road runs the well-train’d runner;       
He is lean and sinewy, with muscular legs;       
He is thinly clothed—he leans forward as he runs,       
With lightly closed fists, and arms partially rais’d.

77. Beautiful Women



WOMEN sit, or move to and fro—some old, some young;       
The young are beautiful—but the old are more beautiful than the young.   

78. Mother and Babe



I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother;       
The sleeping mother and babe—hush’d, I study them long and long.   

79. Thought



OF obedience, faith, adhesiveness;       
As I stand aloof and look, there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men, following the lead of those who do not believe in men.

80. American Feuillage



AMERICA always!       
Always our own feuillage!       
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas!       
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New Mexico! Always soft-breath’d Cuba!       
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes drain’d by the Eastern and Western Seas;            5   
The area the eighty-third year of These States—the three and a half millions of square miles;       
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main—the thirty thousand miles of river navigation,       
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—Always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches;       
Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of Democracy!       
Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows;     10   
Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes;       
Always the West, with strong native persons—the increasing density there—the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;       
All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times,       
All characters, movements, growths—a few noticed, myriads unnoticed,       
Through Mannahatta’s streets I walking, these things gathering;     15   
On interior rivers, by night, in the glare of pine knots, steamboats wooding up;       
Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke and Delaware;       
In their northerly wilds, beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks, the hills—or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink;       
In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock, sitting on the water, rocking silently;       
In farmers’ barns, oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done—they rest standing—they are too tired;     20   
Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play around;       
The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail’d—the farthest polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes;       
White drift spooning ahead, where the ship in the tempest dashes;       
On solid land, what is done in cities, as the bells all strike midnight together;       
In primitive woods, the sounds there also sounding—the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk;     25   
In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake—in summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming;       
In lower latitudes, in warmer air, in the Carolinas, the large black buzzard floating slowly, high beyond the tree tops,       
Below, the red cedar, festoon’d with tylandria—the pines and cypresses, growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat;       
Rude boats descending the big Pedee—climbing plants, parasites, with color’d flowers and berries, enveloping huge trees,       
The waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the wind;     30   
The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark—the supper-fires, and the cooking and eating by whites and negroes,       
Thirty or forty great wagons—the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs,       
The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees—the flames—with the black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising;       
Southern fishermen fishing—the sounds and inlets of North Carolina’s coast—the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery—the large sweep-seines—the windlasses on shore work’d by horses—the clearing, curing, and packing-houses;       
Deep in the forest, in piney woods, turpentine dropping from the incisions in the trees—There are the turpentine works,     35   
There are the negroes at work, in good health—the ground in all directions is cover’d with pine straw:       
—In Tennessee and Kentucky, slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking;       
In Virginia, the planter’s son returning after a long absence, joyfully welcom’d and kiss’d by the aged mulatto nurse;       
On rivers, boatmen safely moor’d at night-fall, in their boats, under shelter of high banks,       
Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle—others sit on the gunwale, smoking and talking;     40   
Late in the afternoon, the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp—there are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress tree, and the juniper tree;       
—Northward, young men of Mannahatta—the target company from an excursion returning home at evening—the musket-muzzles all bear bunches of flowers presented by women;       
Children at play—or on his father’s lap a young boy fallen asleep, (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!)       
The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the Mississippi—he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eye around;       
California life—the miner, bearded, dress’d in his rude costume—the stanch California friendship—the sweet air—the graves one, in passing, meets, solitary, just aside the horsepath;     45   
Down in Texas, the cotton-field, the negro-cabins—drivers driving mules or oxen before rude carts—cotton bales piled on banks and wharves;       
Encircling all, vast-darting, up and wide, the American Soul, with equal hemispheres—one Love, one Dilation or Pride;       
—In arriere, the peace-talk with the Iroquois, the aborigines—the calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorsement,       
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,     50   
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, all institutions,       
All These States, compact—Every square mile of These States, without excepting a particle—you also—me also,       
Me pleas’d, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok’s fields,     55   
Me, 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 road-side;       
The city wharf—Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco,       
The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan;     60   
—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,     65   
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 become a part of that, whatever it is;       
Southward there, I screaming, with wings slowly flapping, with the myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida—or in Louisiana, with pelicans breeding;       
Otherways, there, atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchawan, or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and skipping and running;     70   
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,     75   
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 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, endless 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?     80   
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?

81. Song of the Broad-Axe



1

WEAPON, shapely, naked, wan!       
Head from the mother’s bowels drawn!       
Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one!       
Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown!       
Resting the grass amid and upon,            5   
To be lean’d, and to lean on.       
     
Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes—masculine trades, sights and sounds;       
Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music;       
Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ.       
     
2

Welcome are all earth’s lands, each for its kind;     10   
Welcome are lands of pine and oak;       
Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig;       
Welcome are lands of gold;       
Welcome are lands of wheat and maize—welcome those of the grape;       
Welcome are lands of sugar and rice;     15   
Welcome the cotton-lands—welcome those of the white potato and sweet potato;       
Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies;       
Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings;       
Welcome the measureless grazing-lands—welcome the teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp;       
Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands;     20   
Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands;       
Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores;       
Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc;       
LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe!       
     
3

The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it;     25   
The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space clear’d for a garden,       
The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves, after the storm is lull’d,       
The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea,       
The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on their beam ends, and the cutting away of masts;       
The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashion’d houses and barns;     30   
The remember’d print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men, families, goods,       
The disembarkation, the founding of a new city,       
The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it—the outset anywhere,       
The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette,       
The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags;     35   
The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons,       
The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimm’d faces,       
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves,       
The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint,       
The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the solidification;     40   
The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer,       
Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping,       
The glad clear sound of one’s own voice, the merry song, the natural life of the woods, the strong day’s work,       
The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of hemlock boughs, and the bear-skin;       
—The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,     45   
The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising,       
The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them regular,       
Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises, according as they were prepared,       
The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, their curv’d limbs,       
Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by posts and braces,     50   
The hook’d arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe,       
The floor-men forcing the planks close, to be nail’d,       
Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers,       
The echoes resounding through the vacant building;       
The huge store-house carried up in the city, well under way,     55   
The six framing-men, two in the middle, and two at each end, carefully bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a cross-beam,       
The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands, rapidly laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from front to rear,       
The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the trowels striking the bricks,       
The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place, and set with a knock of the trowel-handle,       
The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by the hod-men;     60   
—Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices,       
The swing of their axes on the square-hew’d log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast,       
The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine,       
The butter-color’d chips flying off in great flakes and slivers,       
The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes;     65   
The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays against the sea;       
—The city fireman—the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack’d square,       
The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring,       
The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water,       
The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets—the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders, and their execution,     70   
The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors, if the fire smoulders under them,       
The crowd with their lit faces, watching—the glare and dense shadows;       
—The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of iron after him,       
The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and temperer,       
The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel, and trying the edge with his thumb,     75   
The one who clean-shapes the handle, and sets it firmly in the socket;       
The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also,       
The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers,       
The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,       
The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,     80   
The antique European warrior with his axe in combat,       
The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head,       
The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither,       
The siege of revolted lieges determin’d for liberty,       
The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the truce and parley;     85   
The sack of an old city in its time,       
The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly,       
Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness,       
Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the gripe of brigands,       
Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing,     90   
The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds,       
The list of all executive deeds and words, just or unjust,       
The power of personality, just or unjust.       
     
4

Muscle and pluck forever!       
What invigorates life, invigorates death,     95   
And the dead advance as much as the living advance,       
And the future is no more uncertain than the present,       
And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the delicatesse of the earth and of man,       
And nothing endures but personal qualities.       
What do you think endures?    100   
Do you think the great city endures?       
Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best-built steamships?       
Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d’oeuvres of engineering, forts, armaments?       
     
Away! These are not to be cherish’d for themselves;       
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them;    105   
The show passes, all does well enough of course,       
All does very well till one flash of defiance.       
     
The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman;       
If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.       
     
5

The place where the great city stands is not the place of stretch’d wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce,    110   
Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new comers, or the anchor-lifters of the departing,       
Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings, or shops selling goods from the rest of the earth,       
Nor the place of the best libraries and schools—nor the place where money is plentiest,       
Nor the place of the most numerous population.       
     
Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards;    115   
Where the city stands that is beloved by these, and loves them in return, and understands them;       
Where no monuments exist to heroes, but in the common words and deeds;       
Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place;       
Where the men and women think lightly of the laws;       
Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases;    120   
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons;       
Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves;       
Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority;       
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal—and President, Mayor, Governor, and what not, are agents for pay;       
Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves;    125   
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs;       
Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged;       
Where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men,       
Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;       
Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands;    130   
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands;       
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands;       
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,       
There the great city stands.       
     
6

How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!    135   
How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man’s or woman’s look!       
     
All waits, or goes by default, till a strong being appears;       
A strong being is the proof of the race, and of the ability of the universe;       
When he or she appears, materials are overaw’d,       
The dispute on the Soul stops,    140   
The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn’d back, or laid away.       
     
What is your money-making now? what can it do now?       
What is your respectability now?       
What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books, now?       
Where are your jibes of being now?    145   
Where are your cavils about the Soul now?       
     
7

A sterile landscape covers the ore—there is as good as the best, for all the forbidding appearance;       
There is the mine, there are the miners;       
The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish’d; the hammers-men are at hand with their tongs and hammers;       
What always served, and always serves, is at hand.    150   
     
Than this, nothing has better served—it has served all:       
Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere the Greek:       
Served in building the buildings that last longer than any;       
Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindostanee;       
Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi—served those whose relics remain in Central America;    155   
Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars, and the druids;       
Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow-cover’d hills of Scandinavia;       
Served those who, time out of mind, made on the granite walls rough sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean-waves;       
Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths—served the pastoral tribes and nomads;       
Served the long, long distant Kelt—served the hardy pirates of the Baltic;    160   
Served before any of those, the venerable and harmless men of Ethiopia;       
Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure, and the making of those for war;       
Served all great works on land, and all great works on the sea;       
For the mediæval ages, and before the mediæval ages;       
Served not the living only, then as now, but served the dead.    165   
     
8

I see the European headsman;       
He stands mask’d, clothed in red, with huge legs, and strong naked arms,       
And leans on a ponderous axe.       
     
(Whom have you slaughter’d lately, European headsman?       
Whose is that blood upon you, so wet and sticky?)    170   
     
I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs;       
I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,       
Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown’d ladies, impeach’d ministers, rejected kings,       
Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains, and the rest.       
     
I see those who in any land have died for the good cause;    175   
The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out;       
(Mind you, O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.)       
     
I see the blood wash’d entirely away from the axe;       
Both blade and helve are clean;       
They spirt no more the blood of European nobles—they clasp no more the necks of queens.    180   
     
I see the headsman withdraw and become useless;       
I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy—I see no longer any axe upon it;       
I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race—the newest, largest race.       
     
9

(America! I do not vaunt my love for you;       
I have what I have.)    185   
     
The axe leaps!       
The solid forest gives fluid utterances;       
They tumble forth, they rise and form,       
Hut, tent, landing, survey,       
Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,    190   
Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,       
Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, library,       
Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter, turret, porch,       
Hoe, rake, pitch-fork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet, wedge, rounce,       
Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,    195   
Work-box, chest, string’d instrument, boat, frame, and what not,       
Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,       
Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans, or for the poor or sick,       
Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the measure of all seas.       
     
The shapes arise!    200   
Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users, and all that neighbors them,       
Cutters down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kennebec,       
Dwellers in cabins among the California mountains, or by the little lakes, or on the Columbia,       
Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande—friendly gatherings, the characters and fun,       
Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellowstone river—dwellers on coasts and off coasts,    205   
Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice.       
     
The shapes arise!       
Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets;       
Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads;       
Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches;    210   
Shapes of the fleets of barges, towns, lake and canal craft, river craft.       
     
The shapes arise!       
Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western Seas, and in many a bay and by-place,       
The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hackmatack-roots for knees,       
The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen busy outside and inside,    215   
The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze, bolt, line, square, gouge, and bead-plane.

10

The shapes arise!       
The shape measur’d, saw’d, jack’d, join’d, stain’d,       
The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud;       
The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of the bride’s bed;    220   
The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath, the shape of the babe’s cradle;       
The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers’ feet;       
The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly parents and children,       
The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and woman—the roof over the well-married young man and woman,       
The roof over the supper joyously cook’d by the chaste wife, and joyously eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day’s work.    225   
     
The shapes arise!       
The shape of the prisoner’s place in the court-room, and of him or her seated in the place;       
The shape of the liquor-bar lean’d against by the young rum-drinker and the old rum-drinker;       
The shape of the shamed and angry stairs, trod by sneaking footsteps;       
The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome couple;    230   
The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and losings;       
The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced murderer, the murderer with haggard face and pinion’d arms,       
The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipp’d crowd, the dangling of the rope.       
     
The shapes arise!       
Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances;    235   
The door passing the dissever’d friend, flush’d and in haste;       
The door that admits good news and bad news;       
The door whence the son left home, confident and puff’d up;       
The door he enter’d again from a long and scandalous absence, diseas’d, broken down, without innocence, without means.       
     
11

Her shape arises,    240   
She, less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever;       
The gross and soil’d she moves among do not make her gross and soil’d;       
She knows the thoughts as she passes—nothing is conceal’d from her;       
She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor;       
She is the best belov’d—it is without exception—she has no reason to fear, and she does not fear;    245   
Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp’d songs, smutty expressions, are idle to her as she passes;       
She is silent—she is possess’d of herself—they do not offend her;       
She receives them as the laws of nature receive them—she is strong,       
She too is a law of nature—there is no law stronger than she is.       
     
12

The main shapes arise!    250   
Shapes of Democracy, total—result of centuries;       
Shapes, ever projecting other shapes;       
Shapes of turbulent manly cities;       
Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,       
Shapes bracing the earth, and braced with the whole earth.    255

82. Song of the Open Road



1

AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,       
Healthy, free, the world before me,       
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.       
     
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;       
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,            5   
Strong and content, I travel the open road.       
     
The earth—that is sufficient;       
I do not want the constellations any nearer;       
I know they are very well where they are;       
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.     10   
     
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;       
I carry them, men and women—I carry them with me wherever I go;       
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;       
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)       
     
2

You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that is here;     15   
I believe that much unseen is also here.       
     
Here the profound lesson of reception, neither preference or denial;       
The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not denied;       
The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,       
The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,     20   
The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town,       
They pass—I also pass—anything passes—none can be interdicted;       
None but are accepted—none but are dear to me.       
     
3

You air that serves me with breath to speak!       
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape!     25   
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!       
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!       
I think you are latent with unseen existences—you are so dear to me.       
     
You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!       
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!     30   
You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!       
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!       
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!       
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!       
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!     35   
From all that has been near you, I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me;       
From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.       
     
4

The earth expanding right hand and left hand,       
The picture alive, every part in its best light,       
The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,     40   
The cheerful voice of the public road—the gay fresh sentiment of the road.       
     
O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to me, Do not leave me?       
Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost?       
Do you say, I am already prepared—I am well-beaten and undenied—adhere to me?       
     
O public road! I say back, I am not afraid to leave you—yet I love you;     45   
You express me better than I can express myself;       
You shall be more to me than my poem.       
     
I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all great poems also;       
I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles;       
(My judgments, thoughts, I henceforth try by the open air, the road;)     50   
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me;       
I think whoever I see must be happy.       
     
5

From this hour, freedom!       
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,       
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,     55   
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,       
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,       
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.       
     
I inhale great draughts of space;       
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.     60   
     
I am larger, better than I thought;       
I did not know I held so much goodness.       
     
All seems beautiful to me;       
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you.       
     
I will recruit for myself and you as I go;     65   
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;       
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;       
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;       
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.       
     
6

Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear, it would not amaze me;     70   
Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear’d, it would not astonish me.       
     
Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,       
It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth.       
     
Here a great personal deed has room;       
A great deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,     75   
Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law, and mocks all authority and all argument against it.       
     
Here is the test of wisdom;       
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools;       
Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it, to another not having it;       
Wisdom is of the Soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,     80   
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities, and is content,       
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;       
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the Soul.       
     
Now I reëxamine philosophies and religions,       
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds, and along the landscape and flowing currents.     85   
     
Here is realization;       
Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has in him;       
The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.       
     
Only the kernel of every object nourishes;       
Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?     90   
Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?       
     
Here is adhesiveness—it is not previously fashion’d—it is apropos;       
Do you know what it is, as you pass, to be loved by strangers?       
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?       
     
7

Here is the efflux of the Soul;     95   
The efflux of the Soul comes from within, through embower’d gates, ever provoking questions:       
These yearnings, why are they? These thoughts in the darkness, why are they?       
Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me, the sun-light expands my blood?       
Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?       
Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?    100   
(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees, and always drop fruit as I pass;)       
What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers?       
What with some driver, as I ride on the seat by his side?       
What with some fisherman, drawing his seine by the shore, as I walk by, and pause?       
What gives me to be free to a woman’s or man’s good-will? What gives them to be free to mine?    105   
     
8

The efflux of the Soul is happiness—here is happiness;       
I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times;       
Now it flows unto us—we are rightly charged.       
     
Here rises the fluid and attaching character;       
The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman;    110   
(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself.)       
     
Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old;       
From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments;       
Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.       
     
9

Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me!    115   
Traveling with me, you find what never tires.       
     
The earth never tires;       
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first—Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first;       
Be not discouraged—keep on—there are divine things, well envelop’d;       
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.    120   
     
Allons! we must not stop here!       
However sweet these laid-up stores—however convenient this dwelling, we cannot remain here;       
However shelter’d this port, and however calm these waters, we must not anchor here;       
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us, we are permitted to receive it but a little while.