Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/442

434 O my mother was loth to have her go away! All the week she thought of her—she watched for
 * her many a month,

She remembered her many a winter and many a
 * summer,

But the red squaw never came, nor was heard of
 * there again.

Now Lucifer was not dead—or if he was, I am his
 * sorrowful terrible heir,

I have been wronged—I am oppressed—I hate him
 * that oppresses me,

I will either destroy him, or he shall release me.

Damn him! how he does defile me! How he informs against my brother and sister, and
 * takes pay for their blood!

How he laughs when I look down the bend, after the
 * steamboat that carries away my woman!

Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale's bulk, it
 * seems mine,

Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish,
 * my tap is death.

A show of the summer softness! a contact of something
 * unseen! an amour of the light and air!

I am jealous, and overwhelmed with friendliness, And will go gallivant with the light and air myself, And have an unseen something to be in contact with
 * them also.

O love and summer! you are in the dreams, and
 * in me!