Song of Myself

Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,

Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,

In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,

Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game,

Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by

my side.

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle

and scud,

My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously

from the deck.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for

me,

I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a

good time;

You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far

west, the bride was a red girl,

Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly

smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large

thick blankets hanging from their shoulders,

On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins,

his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held

his bride by the hand,

She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight

locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd

to her feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,

I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,

Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy

and weak,

And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured

him,

And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and

bruis'd feet,

And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave

him some coarse clean clothes,

And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,

And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and

ankles;

He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and

pass'd north,

I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the

corner.