Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon;

Where the yellow-crowned heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs;

Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees;

Where burial coaches enter the arched gates of a cemetery;

Where the band-necked partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads out;

Where beehives range on a gray bench in the garden half-hid by the high weeds;

Where the laughing-gull scoots by the slappy shore and laughs her near-human laugh;

Where the hummingbird shimmers .... where the neck of the longlived swan is curving and winding;

Where the herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near;

Where the sundown shadows lengthen ever the limitless and lonesome prairie,

Where the heifers browse, and the geese nip their food with short jerks;

Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, and the stud to the mare, and the cock is treading the hen,

Where the hay-rick stands in the barnyard, and the dry-stalks are scattered, and the brood cow waits in the hovel,

Where the mockingbird sounds his delicious gurgles, and cackles and screams and weeps,

At musters and beach-parties and friendly bees and huskings and house-raisings;

At apple-pealings, wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,

At the cider-mill, tasting the sweet of the brown sqush .... sucking the juice through a straw,

At he-festivals with blackguard jibes and ironical license and bull-dances and drinking and laughter,

Upon the race-course, or enjoying pic-nics or jigs or a good game of base-ball,

Upon a door-step .... upon the horse-block of hard wood outside,

Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance;

Approaching Manhattan, up by the long-stretching island,

Where the striped and starred flag is borne at the head of the regiments;

Where shells grow to her slimy deck, and the dead are corrupting below;

Where the half-burned brig is riding on unknown currents,

Where the ground-shark’s fin cuts like a black chip out of the water,

Where the steamship trails hindways its long pennant of smoke,

Where the she-whale swims with her calves and never forsakes them,

Where the life-car is drawn on the slipnoose .... where the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,

Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft .... floating in it myself and looking composedly down;