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The city wharf—Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco,
The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the
capstan;
Evening—me in my room—the setting sun,
The setting summer sun shining in my open window,
showing me flies, suspended, balancing in the
air in the centre of the room, darting athwart,
up and down, casting swift shadows in specks on
the opposite wall, where the shine is;
The athletic American matron speaking in public to
crowds of listeners;
Males, females, immigrants, combinations—the copiousness
—the individuality and sovereignty
of The States, each for itself—the money-makers;
Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces—the
windlass, lever, pulley—All certainties,
The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,
In space, the sporades, the scattered islands, the stars
—on the firm earth, the lands, my lands,
O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whatever
it is,) I become a part of that, whatever it is,
Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping,
with the myriads of gulls wintering along
the coasts of Florida—or in Louisiana, with
pelicans breeding,
Otherways, there, atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw,
the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the
Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchawan, or
the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and
skipping and running;