Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/200

192

looking a long while for the history of the
 * past for myself, and for these Chants—and now
 * I have found it,

It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them
 * I neither accept nor reject,)

It is no more in the legends than in all else, It is in the present—it is this earth to-day, It is in Democracy—in this America—the old world
 * also,

It is the life of one man or one woman to-day, the
 * average man of to-day;

It is languages, social customs, literatures, arts, It is the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery,
 * politics, creeds, modern improvements,
 * and the interchanges of nations,

All for the average man of to-day.



mouth-songs! Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it
 * should be, blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank
 * or beam,