Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/172

164 The city wharf—Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
 * Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco,

The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the
 * capstan;

Evening—me in my room—the setting sun, The setting summer sun shining in my open window,
 * showing me 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 and sovereignty
 * of The States, each for itself—the money-makers;

Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces—the
 * windlass, lever, pulley—All certainties,

The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity, In space, the sporades, the scattered 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 slow 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;