Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/397



! O glistening, perfumed South! My
 * South!

O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good
 * and evil! O all dear to me!

O dear to me my birth-things—All moving things,
 * and the trees where I was born—the grains,
 * plants, rivers;

Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they
 * flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands, or
 * through swamps,

Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw,
 * the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the
 * Coosa, and the Sabine;

O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my Soul
 * to haunt their banks again,

Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes—I float
 * on the Okeechobee—I cross the hummock land,
 * or through pleasant openings, or dense forests,

I see the parrots in the woods—I see the papaw tree
 * and the blossoming titi;

Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off
 * Georgia—I coast up the Carolinas,

I see where the live-oak is growing—I see where the
 * yellow-pine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and
 * orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto;

I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico Sound
 * through an inlet, and dart my vision inland,

Rh