< Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu
This page has been validated.
129
Chants Democratic.
:The echoes resounding through the vacant building;
- The huge store-house carried up in the city, well under way,
- 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 mortarboards, and the steady replenishing by the hod-men;
- Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices,
- The swing of their axes on the square-hewed log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast,
- The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine,
- The butter-colored chips flying off in great flakes and slivers,
- The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes;
- 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-packed square,
- The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring,
This article is issued from
Wikisource.
The text is licensed under Creative
Commons - Attribution - Sharealike.
Additional terms may apply for the media files.