Page:Leaves of Grass (1882).djvu/174

168 Here may he hardy, sweet, gigantic grow, here tower proportionate to Nature,

Here climb the vast ptire spaces unconfined, uncheck'd by wall or roof,

Here laugh with storm or sun, here joy, here patiently inure,

Here heed himself, unfold himself, (not others' formulas heed,) here fill his time,

To duly fall, to aid, unreck'd at last,

To disappear, to serve.

Thus on the northern coast,

In the echo of teamsters' calls and the clinking chains, and the music of choppers' axes,

The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the groan,

Such words combined from the redwood-tree, as of voices ecstatic, ancient and rustling,

The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,

All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,

From the Cascade range to the Wahsatch, or Idaho far, or Utah,

To the deities of the modern henceforth yielding,

The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity, the settlements, features all,

In the Mendocino woods I caught.

The flashing and golden pageant of California,

The sudden and gorgeous drama, the sunny and ample lands,

The long and varied stretch from Puget sound to Colorado south,

Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air, valleys and mountain cliffs,

The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow, the silent, cyclic chemistry,

The slow and steady ages plodding, the unoccupied surface ripening, the rich ores forming beneath;

At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,

A swarming and busy race settling and organizing everywhere,

Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the whole world,

To India and China and Australia and the thousand island paradises of the Pacific,

Populous cities, the latest inventions, the steamers on the rivers, the railroads, with many a thrifty farm, with machinery,

And wool and wheat and the grape, and diggings of yellow gold.