Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/121

Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna,
upland, prairie,
Through him flights, songs, screams, answering those
of the wild-pigeon, coot, fish-hawk, qua-bird,
mocking-bird, condor, night-heron, eagle;
His spirit surrounding his country's spirit, unclosed
to good and evil,
Surrounding the essences of real things, old times
and present times,
Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red
aborigines,
Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, the
rapid stature and muscle,
The haughty defiance of the Year 1—war, peace,
the formation of the Constitution,
The separate States, the simple, elastic scheme, the
immigrants,
The Union, always swarming with blatherers, and
always calm and impregnable,
The unsurveyed interior, log-houses, clearings, wild
animals, hunters, trappers;
Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature,
the gestation of new States,
Congress convening every Twelfth Month, the members
duly coming up from the uttermost parts;
Surrounding the noble character of mechanics
and farmers, especially the young men,
Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships
—the gait they have of persons who never knew
how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,
The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, the
copiousness and decision of their phrenology,