< Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu
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282
Leaves of Grass.
23. The old face of the mother of many children!
- Whist! I am fully content.
24. Lulled and late is the smoke of the First Day morning,
- It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences,
- It hangs thin by the sassafras, the wild-cherry, and the cat-brier under them.
25. I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree,
- I heard what the singers were singing so long,
- Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the water-blue.
26. Behold a woman!
- She looks out from her quaker cap—her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.
27. She sits in an arm-chair, under the shaded porch of the farm-house,
- The sun just shines on her old white head.
28. Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen.
- Her grand-sons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the
wheel.
29. The melodious character of the earth,
- The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go, and does not wish to go.
- The justified mother of men.
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