Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/418

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410
Thoughts.

4.

Of ownership—As if one fit to own things could not
  at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them
  into himself or herself;
Of Equality—As if it harmed me, giving others the
  same chances and rights as myself—As if it
  were not indispensable to my own rights that
  others possess the same;
Of Justice—As if Justice could be any thing but
  the same ample law, expounded by natural
  judges and saviours,
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according
  to decisions.

5.

As I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while
  the music is playing,
To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral,
  in mist, of a wreck at sea,
Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations,
  foundered off the Northeast coast, and
  going down—Of the steamship Arctic going
  down,
Of the veiled tableau—Women gathered together
  on deck, pale, heroic, waiting the moment that
  draws so close—O the moment!