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I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise;

Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,

Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,

Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse, and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine;

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One of the Great Nation, the nation of many nations, the smallest the same, and the largest the same;

A southerner soon as a northerner-a planter nonchalant and hospitable, down by the Oconee I live;

A Yankee, bound by my own way, ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth, and the sternest joints on earth;

A Kentuckian, walking the vale of the Elkhorn, in my deer-skin leggings-a Louisianian or Georgian;

A boatman over lakes or bays, or along coasts-a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye; At home on Kanadian snow-shoes, or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland;

At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking;

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At home on the hills of Vermont, or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch; Comrade of Californians-comrade of free north-westerners, (loving their big proportions ;)

Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen—comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat;

A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest;
A novice beginning, yet experient of myriads of seasons;
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion;
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker;
A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

I resist anything better than my own diversity;
I breathe the air, but leave plenty after me,

And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place;

The suns I see, and the suns I cannot see, are in their place;

The palpable is in its place, and the impalpable is in its place.)

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These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands-they are not original with me;

If they are not yours as much as mine, they are nothing, or next to nothing;

If they are not the riddle, and the untying of the riddle, they are nothing;

If they are not just as close as they are distant, they are nothing.

This is the grass that grows wherever the land is, and the water is;
This is the common air that bathes the globe.

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Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?

What is a man, anyhow? What am I? What are you?

All I mark as my own, you shall offset it with your own;
Else it were time lost listening to me.

I do not snivel that snivel the world over,

That months are vacuums, and the ground but wallow and filth;

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That life is a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbarg crape,

and tears.

Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids-conformity goes to the

fourth-remov'd;

I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out.

Why should I pray? Why should I venerate and be ceremonious?

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Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsell'd with doctors, and calculated close,

I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

In all people I see myself-none more, and not one a barleycorn less;

And the good or bad I say of myself, I say of them.

And I know I am solid and sound;

To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow;

All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

I know I am deathless;

I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by the carpenter's compass;

I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.

I know I am august;

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood;

I see that the elementary laws never apologize;

(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.)

I exist as I am that is enough;

If no other in the world be aware, I sit content;

And if each and all be aware, I sit content.

One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself;

And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite;

I laugh at what you call dissolution;

And I know the amplitude of time.

I am the poet of the Body;

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And I am the poet of the Soul.

The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me; The first I graft and increase upon myself-the latter I translate into a tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man;

And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man;

And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant the chant of dilation or pride;

We have had ducking and deprecating about enough;

I show that size is only development.

Have you outstript the rest? Are you the President?

It is a trifle they will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass on.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;

I call to the earth and sea, half-held by the night.

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Press close, bare-bosom'd night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing night!
Night of south winds! night of the large few stars!

Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night.

Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath'd earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees;

Earth of departed sunset; earth of the mountains, misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue!

Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow'd earth! rich, apple-blossom'd earth!

Smile, for your lover comes!

Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable, passionate love!

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I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'œuvre for the highest,

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,

And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer's girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking short-cake.

I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains, esculent roots,

And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over,
And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,

And call anything close again, when I desire it.

In vain the speeding or shyness;

In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach;

In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder'd bones;

In vain objects stand leagues off, and assume manifold shapes;

In vain the ocean settling in hollows, and the great monsters lying low;

In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky;

In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs;

In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods;

In vain the razor-bill'd auk sails far north to Labrador;

I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.

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I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d;

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition;

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;

Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of owning things; Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago; Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.

So they show their relations to me, and I accept them;

They bring me tokens of myself-they evince them plainly in their possession.

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I wonder where they get those tokens:

Did I pass that way huge times ago, and negligently drop them?
Myself moving forward then and now and forever,

Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them;

Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,

Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers;

Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.

A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,

Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,

Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,

Eyes full of sparkling wickedness--ears finely cut, flexibly moving.

His nostrils dilate, as my heels embrace him;

His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure, as we race around and return.

I but use you a moment, then I resign you, stallion;

Why do I need your paces, when I myself out-gallop them?

Even, as I stand or sit, passing faster than you.

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Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth;

(I tell not the fall of Alamo,

Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,

The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo;)

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'Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men.

Retreating, they had form'd in a hollow square, with their baggage for breastworks;

Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine times their number, was the price they took in advance;

Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone;

They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv'd writing and seal, gave up their arms, and march'd back prisoners of war.

They were the glory of the race of rangers;

Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,

Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,
Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,

Not a single one over thirty years of age.

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The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads, and massacredit was beautiful early summer;

The work commenced about five o'clock, and was over by eight.

None obey'd the command to kneel;

Some made a mad and helpless rush-some stood stark and straight;

A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart-the living and dead lay together;
The maim'd and mangled dug in the dirt-the newcomers saw them there;
Some, half-kill'd, attempted to crawl away;

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These were despatch'd with bayonets, or batter'd with the blunts of muskets; A youth not seventeen years old seiz'd his assassin till two more came to release him;

The three were all torn, and cover'd with the boy's blood.

At eleven o'clock began the burning of the bodies:

That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.

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Would you hear of an old-fashion'd sea-fight?

Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?

List to the story as my grandmother's father, the sailor, told it to me.

Our foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you, (said he;)

His was the surly English pluck-and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;

Along the lower'd eve he came, horribly raking us.

We closed with him-the yards entangled-the cannon touch'd;

My captain lash'd fast with his own hands.

We had receiv'd some eighteen-pound shots under the water;

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On our lower gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around, and blowing up overhead.

Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark;

Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported;

The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the afterhold, to give them a chance for themselves.

The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,

They see so many strange faces, they do not know whom to trust.

Our frigate takes fire;

The other asks if we demand quarter?

If our colors are struck, and the fighting is done?

Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,

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We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.

Only three guns are in use;

One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast;

Two, well served with grape and canister, silence his musketry and clear his decks.

The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top;
They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.

Not a moment's cease;

The leaks gain fast on the pumps-the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.

One of the pumps has been shot away-it is generally thought we are sinking.

Serene stands the little captain;

He is not hurried-his voice is neither high nor low;

His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.

Toward twelve at night, there in the beams of the moon, they surrender to us.

Stretch'd and still lies the midnight;

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Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness;

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Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking-preparations to pass to the one we have

conquered;

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