I CELEBRATE myself:

And what I assume you shall assume; For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my Soul;

I lean and loafe at my case, observing a spear of summer grass.

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes-the shelves are crowded with perfumes;

I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it;

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume-it has no taste of the distillation-it is odorless; It is for my mouth forever-I am in love with it; I will go to the bank of the wood, and become undisguised and naked;

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

A child once sail, 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 some way in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say, Whose?

The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon;

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; Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I gave them the same, I receive the same.

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

Tenderly, will I use yon, 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.

green intertinged;

The armfuls are packed to the sagging mow.

I am there-I help-I came stretched atop of the load;

I felt its soft jolts-one leg reclined on the other; I jump from the cross-beams, and seize the clover and timothy,

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

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 tire and broiling the fresh-killed

game;

Falling asleep on the gathered 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 boatman and clam-diggers arose early and stopt 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.)

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 dressed 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 bareher coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reached 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 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 cleaned in the corner.)

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, barc-bosomed 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-breathed earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees;
Earth of departed sunset! earth of the moun-
tains, misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreons 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 elbowed earth! rich apple-blossomed earth!

Smile, for your lover comes!

Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!

O unspeakable, passionate love!

The past and present wilt-I have filled them, emptied them,

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! Here, you! What have you to confide to me?

Look in my face, while I snuff the sidle of evening;

Talk honestly-no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.

Do I contradict myself?

Very well, then, I contradict myself; (I am large-I contain multitudes.)

I concentre toward them that are nigh-I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day's work? Who will soonest be through with his supper?

Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses mehe complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed-I too am untranslatable;

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me;

It flings my likeness after the rest, and true as any, on the shadowed wilds;

It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air-I shake my white locks at the

runaway sun;

I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;

If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean; But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged : Missing me one place, search another:

I stop somewhere, waiting for you.

And he'll never know

Where the summers go;—

He need not laugh, for he'll find it so!
Who can tell what a baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links

By which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shore of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,

Into the light of day?—

Out from the shore of the unknown sea,
Tossing in pitiful agony,―

Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,
Specked with the barks of little souls-
Barks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from Heaven on an ebbing tide!
What does he think of his mother's eyes?
What does he think of his mother's hair?
What of the cradle-roof that flies
Forward and backward through the air?
What does he think of his mother's breast-
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight-

Cup of his life and couch of his rest?
What does he think when her quick embrace
Presses his hand and buries his face
Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell
With a tenderness she can never tell,

Though she murmur the words
Of all the birds-

Words she has learned to murmur well?
Now he thinks he'll go to sleep!
I can see the shadow creep
Over his eyes in soft eclipse,
Over his brow and over his lips,
Out to his little finger-tips!
Softly sinking, down he goes!
Down he goes! Down he goes!
See! He is hushed in sweet repose!

A MOTHER'S SONG.

HITHER, Sleep! A motner wants thee!
Come with velvet arms!

Fold the baby that she grants thee
To thy own soft charms!

Bear him into Dreamland lightly!
Give him sight of flowers!
Do not bring him back till brightly
Break the morning hours!

Close his eyes with gentle fingers!
Cross his hands of snow!
Tell the angels where he lingers
They must whisper low!

I will guard thy spell unbroken
If thou hear my call;
Come then, Sleep! I wait the token
Of thy downy thrall.

Now I see his sweet lips moving;
He is in thy keep;
Other milk the babe is proving
At the breast of Sleep!