Drum Taps by Walt Whitman
page 24 of 72 (33%)
page 24 of 72 (33%)
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money-shops opening,
And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods; These, ah these, how valued and toil'd for these! How envied by all the earth. _Poet._ Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high, On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels, On floats the wind over the breast of the sea setting in toward land, The great steady wind from west or west-by-south, Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters. But I am not the sea nor the red sun, I am not the wind with girlish laughter, Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes, Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death, But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings, Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land, Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings, And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant, Aloft there flapping and flapping. _Child._ O father it is alive--it is full of people--it has children, O now it seems to me it is talking to its children, I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful! O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast--O my father, It is so broad it covers the whole sky. |
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