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375
Calamus.

37.

A Leaf for hand in hand!

You natural persons old and young ! You on the Eastern Sea, and you on the Western !

You on the Mississippi, and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi !

You friendly boatmen and mechanics ! You roughs !

You twain ! And all processions moving along the streets !

I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand.

38.

Primeval my love for the woman I love,

O bride ! wife ! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you !

Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born,

The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,

I ascend — I float in the regions of your love, man, sharer of my roving life.

39.

Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturned love ;

But now I think there is no unreturned love — the pay is certain, one way or another,

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