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Leaves of Grass.

: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;

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;

Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play around;

The hawk sailing where men have not yet sailed—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;

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