STARTING FROM PAUMANOK.

I.

TARTING from fish-shape Paumanok,* where I was

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born,

Well-begotten, and raised by a perfect mother;

After roaming many lands—lover of populous pavements; Dweller in Mannahatta,† city of ships, my city—or on southern savannas;

Or a soldier camped, or carrying my knapsack and gun— or a miner in California;

Or rude in my home in Dakotah's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the spring;

Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess, Far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing, rapt and

happy;

Aware of the fresh free giver, the flowing Missouri—aware of mighty Niagara ;

* Paumanok is the native name of Long Island, State of New York. It presents a fish-like shape on the map.

Mannahatta, or Manhattan, is (as many readers will know) New York.

Aware of the buffalo herds, grazing the plains—the hirsute

and strong-breasted bull;

Of earths, rocks, fifth-month flowers, experienced—stars, rain, snow, my amaze;

Having studied the mocking-bird's tones, and the mountain

hawk's,

And heard at dusk the unrivalled one, the hermit thrush, from the swamp-cedars,

Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.

2.

Victory, union, faith, identity, time,

Yourself, the present and future lands, the indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,

Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.

This, then, is life;

Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions.

How curious! how real!

Under foot the divine soil—over head the sun.

See, revolving, the globe;

The ancestor-continents, away, grouped together;

The present and future continents, north and south, with

the isthmus between.

See, vast trackless spaces;

As in a dream, they change, they swiftly fill;

Countless masses debouch upon them;

They are now covered with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known.

See, projected through time,

For me an audience interminable.

With firm and regular step they wend—they never stop, Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions; One generation playing its part, and passing on,

Another generation playing its part, and passing on in its turn,

With faces turned sideways or backward towards me, to listen,

With eyes retrospective towards me.

Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the

Mexican Sea;

Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and

Minnesota;

Chants going forth from the centre, from Kansas, and thence, equidistant,

Shooting in pulses of fire, ceaseless, to vivify all.

4.

In the Year 80 of the States,*

My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here, from parents the same, and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-six years old, in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,

(Retiring back a while, sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,)

I harbour, for good or bad—I permit to speak, at every hazard—

Nature now without check, with original energy.

5.

Take my leaves, America! take them South, and take

them North!

* 1856.

Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring;

Surround them, East and West! for they would surround

you;

And you precedents! connect lovingly with them, for they connect lovingly with you.

I conned old times;

I sat studying at the feet of the great masters:

Now, if eligible, O that the great masters might return and study me!

In the name of these States, shall I scorn the antique ? Why these are the children of the antique, to justify it.

6.

Dead poets, philosophs, priests,

Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,
Language-shapers on other shores,

Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,

I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left, wafted hither:

I have perused it—own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it ;)

Think nothing can ever be greater—nothing can ever

deserve more than it deserves;