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
bed-room;)
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 sign-painter 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.