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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE.
1
WEAPON shapely, naked, wan, |
Head from the mother's bowels drawn, |
Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one, |
Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown, helve produced from a little
seed sown,
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Resting the grass amid and upon, |
To be lean'd and to lean on. |
Strong shapes and attributes of strong shapes, masculine trades,
sights and sounds,
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Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music, |
Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the
great organ.
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2
Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind, |
Welcome are lands of pine and oak, |
Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig, |
Welcome are lands of gold, |
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Welcome are lands of wheat and maize, welcome those of the
grape,
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Welcome are lands of sugar and rice, |
Welcome the cotton-lands, welcome those of the white potato
and sweet potato,
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Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies, |
Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings, |
Welcome the measureless grazing-lands, welcome the teeming soil
of orchards, flax, honey, hemp;
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Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands, |
Lands rich as lands of gold or wheat and fruit lands, |
Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores, |
Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc, |
Lands of iron—lands of the make of the axe. |
3
The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it, |
The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space clear'd for a
garden,
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The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves after the storm
is lull'd,
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The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea, |
The thought of ships struck in the storm and put on their beam
ends, and the cutting away of masts,
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The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashion'd houses and
barns,
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The remember'd print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of
men, families, goods,
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The disembarkation, the founding of a new city, |
The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it, the
outset anywhere,
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The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette, |
The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags; |
The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, |
The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men with their clear un-
trimm'd faces,
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The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on
themselves,
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The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the bound-
less impatience of restraint,
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The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types,
the solidification;
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The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners
and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer,
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Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the woods, stripes
of snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping,
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The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the
natural life of the woods, the strong day's work,
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The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the
bed of hemlock-boughs and the bear-skin;
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The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere, |
The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising, |
The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying
them regular,
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Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises according as they
were prepared,
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The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men,
their curv'd limbs,
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Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on
by posts and braces,
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The hook'd arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe, |
The floor-men forcing the planks close to be nail'd, |
Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers, |
The echoes resounding through the vacant building; |
The huge storehouse carried up in the city well under way, |
The six framing-men, two in the middle and two at each end,
carefully bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a
cross-beam,
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The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands
rapidly laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from
front to rear,
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The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the
trowels striking the bricks,
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The bricks one after another each laid so workmanlike in its
place, and set with a knock of the trowel-handle,
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The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the
steady replenishing by the hod-men;
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Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown
apprentices,
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The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log shaping it toward
the shape of a mast,
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The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, |
The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, |
The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy cos-
tumes,
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The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats,
stays against the sea;
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The city fireman, the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-
pack'd square,
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The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and
daring,
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The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line,
the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water,
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The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets, the bringing to bear of the
hooks and ladders and their execution,
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The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through
floors if the fire smoulders under them,
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The crowd with their lit faces watching, the glare and dense
shadows;
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The forger at his forge-furnace and the user of iron after him, |
The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and tem-
perer,
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The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel and trying the
edge with his thumb,
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The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets it firmly in the
socket;
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The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also, |
The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers, |
The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice, |
The Roman lictors preceding the consuls, |
The antique European warrior with his axe in combat, |
The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head, |
The death-howl, the limpsy tumbling body, the rush of friend and
foe thither,
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The siege of revolted lieges determin'd for liberty, |
The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the truce
and parley,
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The sack of an old city in its time, |
The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and
disorderly,
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Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness, |
Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in
the gripe of brigands,
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Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons
despairing,
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The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds, |
The list of all executive deeds and words just or unjust, |
The power of personality just or unjust. |
4
Muscle and pluck forever! |
What invigorates life invigorates death, |
And the dead advance as much as the living advance, |
And the future is no more uncertain than the present, |
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For the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as
the delicatesse of the earth and of man,
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And nothing endures but personal qualities. |
What do you think endures? |
Do you think a great city endures? |
Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or
the best built steamships?
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Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d'oeuvres of engineering,
forts, armaments?
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Away! these are not to be cherish'd for themselves, |
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for
them,
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The show passes, all does well enough of course, |
All does very well till one flash of defiance. |
A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, |
If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole
world.
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5
The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch'd
wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce merely,
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Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the anchor-
lifters of the departing,
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Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops selling
goods from the rest of the earth,
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Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place where
money is plentiest,
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Nor the place of the most numerous population. |
Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and
bards,
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Where the city stands that is belov'd by these, and loves them in
return and understands them,
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Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words
and deeds,
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Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place, |
Where the men and women think lightly of the laws, |
Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases, |
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity
of elected persons,
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Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the whistle
of death pours its sweeping and unript waves,
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Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of
inside authority,
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Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President,
Mayor, Governor and what not, are agents for pay,
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Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend
on themselves,
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Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs, |
Where speculations on the soul are encouraged, |
Where women walk in public processions in the streets the same
as the men,
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Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as
the men;
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Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands, |
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands, |
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands, |
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands, |
There the great city stands. |
6
How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed! |
How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's
or woman's look!
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All waits or goes by default till a strong being appears; |
A strong being is the proof of the race and of the ability of the
universe,
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When he or she appears materials are overaw'd, |
The dispute on the soul stops, |
The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn'd back, or laid
away.
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What is your money-making now? what can it do now? |
What is your respectability now? |
What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books,
now?
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Where are your jibes of being now? |
Where are your cavils about the soul now? |
7
A sterile landscape covers the ore, there is as good as the best for
all the forbidding appearance,
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There is the mine, there are the miners, |
The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish'd, the hammers-
men are at hand with their tongs and hammers,
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What always served and always serves is at hand. |
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Than this nothing has better served, it has served all, |
Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere
the Greek,
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Served in building the buildings that last longer than any, |
Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindustanee, |
Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi, served those whose
relics remain in Central America,
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Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars
and the druids,
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Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow-cover'd
hills of Scandinavia,
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Served those who time out of mind made on the granite walls
rough sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean waves,
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Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths, served the pas-
toral tribes and nomads,
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Served the long distant Kelt, served the hardy pirates of the Baltic, |
Served before any of those the venerable and harmless men of
Ethiopia,
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Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure and the
making of those for war,
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Served all great works on land and all great works on the sea, |
For the mediaeval ages and before the mediaeval ages, |
Served not the living only then as now, but served the dead. |
8
I see the European headsman, |
He stands mask'd, clothed in red, with huge legs and strong naked
arms,
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And leans on a ponderous axe. |
(Whom have you slaughter'd lately European headsman? |
Whose is that blood upon you so wet and sticky?) |
I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs, |
I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts, |
Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown'd ladies, impeach'd ministers,
rejected kings,
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Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains and the rest. |
I see those who in any land have died for the good cause, |
The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out, |
(Mind you O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.) |
I see the blood wash'd entirely away from the axe, |
Both blade and helve are clean, |
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They spirt no more the blood of European nobles, they clasp no
more the necks of queens.
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I see the headsman withdraw and become useless, |
I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy, I see no
longer any axe
upon it,
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I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own
race, the newest, largest race.
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9
(America! I do not vaunt my love for you, |
The solid forest gives fluid utterances, |
They tumble forth, they rise and form, |
Hut, tent, landing, survey, |
Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade, |
Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable, |
Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, li-
brary,
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Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, turret, porch, |
Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet,
wedge, rounce,
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Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor, |
Work-box, chest, string'd instrument, boat, frame, and what not, |
Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States, |
Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans or for the poor
or sick,
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Manhattan steamboats and clippers taking the measure of all seas. |
Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users and all that
neighbors them,
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Cutters down of wood and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Ken-
nebec,
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Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains or by the little
lakes, or on the Columbia,
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Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande, friendly
gatherings, the characters and fun,
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Dwellers along the St. Lawrence, or north in Kanada, or down by
the Yellowstone, dwellers on coasts and off coasts,
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Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the
ice.
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Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets, |
Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads, |
Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches, |
Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake and canal craft, river craft, |
Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western seas, and
in many a bay and by-place,
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The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hackmatack-
roots for knees,
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The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the
workmen busy outside and inside,
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The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze,
bolt, line, square, gouge, and bead-plane.
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10
The shape measur'd, saw'd, jack'd, join'd, stain'd, |
The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud, |
The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of
the bride's bed,
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The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath,
the shape of the babe's cradle,
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The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers' feet, |
The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the
friendly parents and children,
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The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and
woman, the roof over the well-married young man and
woman,
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The roof over the supper joyously cook'd by the chaste wife, and
joyously eaten by the chaste husband, content after his
day's work.
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The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room, and of him
or her seated in the place,
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The shape of the liquor-bar lean'd against by the young rum-
drinker and the old rum-drinker,
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The shape of the shamed and angry stairs trod by sneaking foot-
steps,
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The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome
couple,
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The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and
losings,
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The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced
murderer, the murderer with haggard face and pinion'd arms,
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The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipp'd
crowd, the dangling of the rope.
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Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances, |
The door passing the dissever'd friend flush'd and in haste, |
The door that admits good news and bad news, |
The door whence the son left home confident and puff'd up, |
The door he enter'd again from a long and scandalous absence,
diseas'd, broken down, without innocence, without means.
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11
She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever, |
The gross and soil'd she moves among do not make her gross and
soil'd,
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She knows the thoughts as she passes, nothing is conceal'd from her, |
She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor, |
She is the best belov'd, it is without exception, she has no reason
to fear and she does not fear,
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Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp'd songs, smutty expressions, are idle to
her as she passes,
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She is silent, she is possess'd of herself, they do not offend her, |
She receives them as the laws of Nature receive them, she is strong, |
She too is a law of Nature—there is no law stronger than she is. |
12
Shapes of Democracy total, result of centuries, |
Shapes ever projecting other shapes, |
Shapes of turbulent manly cities, |
Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth, |
Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole earth. |
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