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Rh You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you
 * timber-lined sides! you distant ships!

You rows of houses ! you window-pierced façades!
 * you roofs!

You porches and entrances! you copings and iron
 * guards!

You windows whose transparent shells might expose
 * so much!

You doors and ascending steps! you arches! You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden
 * crossings!

From all that has been near you I believe you have
 * imparted to yourselves, and now would impart
 * the same secretly to me,

From the living and the dead I think you have peopled
 * your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof
 * would be evident and amicable with me.

The earth expanding right hand and left hand, The picture alive, every part in its best light, The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping
 * where it was not wanted,

The cheerful voice of the public road—the gay fresh
 * sentiment of the road.

O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to
 * me, Do not leave me?

Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are
 * lost?

Do you say, I am already prepared—I am well-beaten
 * and undenied—adhere to me?

O public road! I say back, I am not afraid to leave
 * you—yet I love you,