31. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of

graves.

32. Tenderly will I use you, curling grass,

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,

It may be you are from old people, and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,

And here you are the mothers' laps.

33. This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,

Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

34. OI perceive after all so many uttering tongues! And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

35. I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

36. What do you think has become of the young and old men?

And what do you think has become of the women and children?

37. They are alive and well somewhere,

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,

And ceased the moment life appeared.

38. All goes onward and outward - nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

39. Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her, it is just as lucky to
die, and I know it.

40. I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-
washed babe, and am not contained between my
hat and boots,

And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every
one good,

The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts

all good.

41. I am not an earth, nor an adjunct of an earth,

I am the mate and companion of people, all just as
immortal and fathomless as myself;

They do not know how immortal, but I know.

42. Every kind for itself and its own - for me mine, male and female,

For me those that have been boys, and that love

women,

For me the man that is proud, and feels how it stings
to be slighted,

For me the sweetheart and the old maid

for me

mothers, and the mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed
tears,

For me children, and the begetters of children.

43. Who need be afraid of the merge ?

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale, nor
discarded,

I see through the broadcloth and gingham, whether

or no,

And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and
can never be shaken away.

44. The little one sleeps in its cradle,

I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently
brush away flies with my hand.

45. The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up
the bushy hill,

I peeringly view them from the top.

L

46. The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bed

47. The blab of the pave, the tires of carts, sluff of bootsoles, talk of the promenaders,

The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogat

ing thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,

The snow-sleighs, the clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls,

The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of roused mobs,

The flap of the curtained litter, a sick man inside, borne to the hospital,

The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,

The excited crowd, the policeman with his star, quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd,

The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,

The Souls moving along― (are they invisible, while the least of the stones is visible?)

What groans of over-fed or half-starved who fall sunstruck, or in fits,

What exclamations of women taken suddenly, who hurry home and give birth to babes,

What living and buried speech is always vibrating here what howls restrained by decorum, Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances, rejections with convex lips,

I mind them or the show or resonance of them - I come and I depart.

48. The big doors of the country-barn stand open and

ready,

The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow

drawn wagon,

The clear light plays on the brown, gray, and green intertinged,

The armfuls are packed to the sagging mow.

I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,

And roll head over heels, and tangle my hair full of wisps.

50. 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-killed game,
Soundly falling asleep on the gathered leaves, with
my dog and gun by my side.

51. The Yankee clipper is under her three sky-sails she cuts the sparkle and scud,

My eyes settle the land-I bend at her prow, or shout joyously from the deck.

52. The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopped

for me,

I tucked 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.

53. 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 moccasons to their feet, and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders;

On a bank lounged the trapper- he was dressed mostly in skins his luxuriant beard and curls

protected his neck,

One hand rested on his rifle. the other hand held firmly the wrist of the red girl,

She had long eyelashes

her head was bare-her

coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reached to her feet.

54. The runaway slave came to my house and stopped 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 filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet,

And gave him a room that entered 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 passed north,

I had him sit next me at table- my fire-lock leaned in the corner.

55. Twenty-eight young men batne by the shore,

Twenty-eight young men, and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life, and all so lone-

some.

56. She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank, She hides, handsome and richly drest, aft the blinds of the window.

57. Which of the young men does she like the best? Ah, the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

58. Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,

You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

59. Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,

The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

60. The beards of the young men glistened with wet, it ran from their long hair,

Little streams passed all over their bodies.