Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/76

68 Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and
 * shades in the breeze,

Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up,
 * holding on by low scragged limbs,

Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through
 * the leaves of the brush,

Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and
 * the wheat-lot,

Where the bat flies in the Seventh Month eve—
 * Where the great gold-bug drops through the
 * dark,

Where the flails keep time on the barn floor, Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree
 * and flows to the meadow,

Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the
 * tremulous shuddering of their hides,

Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen—Where
 * andirons straddle the hearth-slab—Where cobwebs
 * fall in festoons from the rafters,

Where trip-hammers crash—Where the press is
 * whirling its cylinders,

Wherever the human heart beats with terrible
 * throes out of its ribs,

Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, floating
 * in it myself and looking composedly down,

Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose—Where
 * the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented
 * sand,

Where the she-whale swims with her calf, and never
 * forsakes it,

Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant
 * of smoke,

Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out
 * of the water,