Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account,

The divine ship sails the divine sea.

Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you,

The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.

A Song of the Rolling Earth.

Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,

Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,

The fishes that swim-the rocks—the motion of the waves-the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

Sea of stretch'd ground-swells,

Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,

Miracles.

Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves,
Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,

I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.

Song of Myself. Stanza 22.

Long and long has the grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,

Long has the globe been rolling round.

Thee for my recitative,

Fierce-throated beauty!

Song of the Exposition.

Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night,
Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all,
Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding,

(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)

Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd,
Launch'd o'er the prairies wide, across the lakes,
To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.

To a Locomotive in Winter.

A child said What is the Grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

say Whose?

Song of Myself. Stanza 6.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white.

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

Tenderly will I use you curling grass.

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,

I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare bosom'd night-press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds-night of the large few stars!

Still nodding night-mad naked summer night. *

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

Earth of departed sunset-earth of the mountains misty-topt!

Earth of the virtreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow'd earth-rich apple-blossom'd earth!

Smile, for your lover comes.

Prodigal, you have given me love-therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.

Song of Myself. Stanza 21.

The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,
They scorn the best I can do to relate them,