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Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the meaning, the main

concern,

Any more than a man's substance and life, or a woman's substance and life, return in the body and the Soul,

Indifferently before death and after death.

Behold! the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern-and includes and is the Soul;

Whoever you are! how superb and how divine is your body, or any part of it.

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Whoever you are! to you endless announcements.

Daughter of the lands, did you wait for your poet?

Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand?

Toward the male of The States, and toward the female of The States,
Live words-words to the lands.

O the lands interlink'd, food-yielding lands!

Land of coal and iron! Land of gold! Lands of cotton, sugar, rice!

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Land of wheat, beef, pork! Land of wool and hemp! Land of the apple and grape!

Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world! Land of those sweetair'd interminable plateaus !

Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie!

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Lands where the northwest Columbia winds, and where the southwest Colorado winds!

Land of the eastern Chesapeake! Land of the Delaware!

Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan!

Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! Land of Vermont and Connecticut!

Land of the ocean shores! Land of sierras and peaks!

Land of boatmen and sailors! Fishermen's land!

Inextricable lands! the clutched together! the passionate ones!

The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limb'd!

The great women's land! the feminine! the experienced sisters and the inexperienced sisters!

Far breath'd land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez'd! the diverse! the compact! The Pennsylvanian! the Virginian! the double Carolinian!

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O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations! O I at any rate include you all with perfect love!

I cannot be discharged from you! not from one, any sooner than another!

O Death! O for all that, I am yet of you, unseen, this hour, with irrepressible love, Walking New England, a friend, a traveler,

Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples, on Paumanok's sands. Crossing the prairies-dwelling again in Chicago-dwelling in every town, Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,

Listening to the orators and the oratresses in public halls,

Of and through The States, as during life-each man and woman my neighbor,
The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her,
The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me-and I yet with any of them;
Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river—yet in my house of adobie,
Yet returning eastward—yet in the Sea-Side State, or in Maryland,

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Yet Kanadian, cheerily braving the winter-the snow and ice welcome to me,
Yet a true son either of Maine, or of the Granite State, or of the Narragansett Bay
State, or of the Empire State;

Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same-yet welcoming every new brother;

Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones, from the hour they unite with the old ones;

Coming among the new ones myself, to be their companion and equal-coming

personally to you now;

Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.

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With me, with firm holding-yet haste, haste on.

For your life, adhere to me!

Of all the men of the earth, I only can unloose you and toughen you;

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I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself really to youbut what of that?

Must not Nature be persuaded many times?

No dainty dolce affettuoso I;

Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck'd, forbidding, I have arrived,

To be wrestled with as I pass, for the solid prizes of the universe;

For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.

On my way a moment I pause;

Here for you! and here for America!

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Still the Present I raise aloft-Still the Future of The States I harbinge, glad and sublime;

And for the Past, I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines.

The red aborigines!

Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds and animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names;

Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee, Kaqueta, Oronoco,

Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla;

Leaving such to The States, they melt, they depart, charging the water and the land with names.

O expanding and swift! O henceforth,

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Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick and audacious;

A world primal again-Vistas of glory, incessant and branching;

A new race, dominating previous ones, and grander far-with new contests,

New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts.

These! my voice announcing-I will sleep no more, but arise;

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You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.

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See! steamers steaming through my poems!

See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing;

See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter's hut, the flatboat, the maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the backwoods village;

See, on the one side the Western Sea, and on the other the Eastern Sea, how they advance and retreat upon my poems, as upon their own shores.

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See, pastures and forests in my poems-See, animals, wild and tame-See, beyond the Kanzas, countless herds of buffalo, feeding on short curly grass; See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets, with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and commerce;

See, the many-cylinder'd steam printing-press-See, the electric telegraph, stretching across the Continent, from the Western Sea to Manhattan ;

See, through Atlantica's depths, pulses American, Europe reaching-pulses of Europe, duly return'd;

See, the strong and quick locomotive, as it departs, panting, blowing the steam-whistle; See, ploughmen, ploughing farms-See, miners, digging mines-See, the numberless factories;

See, mechanics, busy at their benches, with tools-See from among them, superior judges, philosophers, Presidents, emerge, drest in working dresses;

See, lounging through the shops and fields of The States, me, well-belov'd, close-held by day and night;

Hear the loud echoes of my songs there! Read the hints come at last.

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O a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly!

O something extatic and undemonstrable! O music wild!

O now I triumph-and you shall also;

O hand in hand-O wholesome pleasure-O one more desirer and lover!

O to haste, firm holding—to haste, haste on with me.

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First published in 1860 under title of "Proto-Leaf.”

A SONG
1

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble;

I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;

I will make divine magnetic lands,

With the love of comrades,

With the life-long love of comrades

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I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies;

I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's necks;

By the love of comrades,

By the manly love of comrades.

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For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme!

For you! for you, I am thrilling these songs,

In the love of comrades,

In the high-towering love of comrades.

I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIVE-OAK GROWING

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,

All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches;

Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,

And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;

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1860

But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near-for I knew I could not;

And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around

it a little moss,

And brought it away-and I have placed it in sight in my room;

It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,

(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them;)

Yet it remains to me a curious token-it makes me think of manly love;

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For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,

Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,

I know very well I could not.

1860

I HEAR IT WAS CHARGED AGAINST ME

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions;

(What indeed have I in common with them?-Or what with the destruction of them?) Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of These States, inland and seaboard,

And in the fields and woods, and above every keel, little or large, that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

ME IMPERTURBE

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,

Master of all, or mistress of all-aplomb in the midst of irrational things,
Imbued as they-passive, receptive, silent as they,

1860

Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought;

Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary-all these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the best-I am not subordinate;)

Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or far north, or inland,

A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada,

Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies!

O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

1860

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;

Those of mechanics-each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;

The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat-the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench-the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter's song-the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning, or at the noon
intermission, or at sundown;

The delicious singing of the mother-or of the young wife at work-or of the girl
sewing or washing-Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day-At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

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First published in 1860 where line 1 reads "American Mouth-Songs."

WITH ANTECEDENTS

1

With antecedents;

With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages;
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am:

With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome;

With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon;

With antique maritime ventures, with laws, artizanship, wars and journeys;

With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle;

With the sale of slaves-with enthusiasts-with the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk;

With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent;

With the fading kingdoms and kings over there;

With the fading religions and priests;

With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores;
With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years;
You and Me arrived-America arrived, and making this year;
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.

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O but it is not the years-it is I-it is You;

We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents;

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We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knight—we easily include them, and

more;

We stand amid time, beginningless and endless-we stand amid evil and good;

All swings around us-there is as much darkness as light;

The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us;

Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.

As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days,)

I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all;

I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true-I reject no part.

Have I forgotten any part?

Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.

I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews;

I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god;

I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception;

I assert that all past days were what they should have been;

And that they could no-how have been better than they were,

And that to-day is what it should be-and that America is,

And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.

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In the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Past,

And in the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Present time.

I know that the past was great, and the future will be great,

And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,

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(For the sake of him I typify-for the common average man's sake-your sake, if you are he;)

And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of all days, all races,

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And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and days, or ever will come.

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