Song of Myself

The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,

The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane

whistles its wild ascending lisp,

The married and unmarried children ride home to their

Thanksgiving dinner,

The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong

arm,

The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon

are ready,

The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,

The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,

The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big

wheel,

The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe

and looks at the oats and rye,

The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,

(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his

mother's bedroom;)

The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his

case,

He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the

manuscript;

The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,

What is removed drops horribly in a pail;

The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard

nods by the bar-room stove,

The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his

beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass,

The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him,

though I do not know him;)

The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,

The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean

on their rifles, some sit on logs,

Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position,

levels his piece;

The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,

As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views

them from his saddle,

The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their

partners, the dancers bow to each other,

The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to

the musical rain,

The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,

The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering

moccasins and bead-bags for sale,

The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with

half-shut eyes bent sideways,

As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is

thrown for the shore-going passengers,

The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister

winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the

knots,

The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago

borne her first child,

The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine

or in the factory or mill,

The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the

reporter's lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the signpainter

is lettering with blue and gold,

The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts

at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,

The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers

follow him,

The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions,

The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the

white sails sparkle!)

The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray,

The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser

higgling about the odd cent;)

The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the

clock moves slowly,

The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips,

The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her

tipsy and pimpled neck,

The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and

wink to each other,

(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)

The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the

great Secretaries,

On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with

twined arms,

The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in

the hold,

The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his

cattle,

As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by

the jingling of loose change,

The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the

roof, the masons are calling for mortar,

In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the

laborers;

Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is

gather'd, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes

of cannon and small arms!)

Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the

mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground;

Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole

in the frozen surface,

The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter

strikes deep with his axe,

Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood

or pecan-trees,

Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through

those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,

Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or

Altamahaw,

Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and

great-grandsons around them,

In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers

after their day's sport,

The city sleeps and the country sleeps,

The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,

The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband

sleeps by his wife;

And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,

And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,

And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.