20.
O Camerado close!
O you and me at last--and us two only.
O a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly!
O something ecstatic and undemonstrable! O music wild!
O now I triumph--and you shall also;
O hand in hand--O wholesome pleasure--O one more desirer and lover!
O to haste, firm holding--to haste, haste on, with me.
[Footnote 1: Paumanok is the native name of Long Island, State of New York.
It presents a fish-like shape on the map.]
[Footnote 2: Mannahatta, or Manhattan, is (as many readers will know) New
York.]
[Footnote 3: 1856.]
[Footnote 4: The poet here contemplates himself as yet living spiritually
and in his poems after the death of the body, still a friend and brother to
all present and future American lands and persons.]
[Footnote 5: New Hampshire.]
[Footnote 6: New York State.]
_AMERICAN FEUILLAGE._
AMERICA always!
Always our own feuillage!
Always Florida's green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana!
Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas!
Always California's golden hills and hollows--and the silver mountains of
New Mexico! Always soft-breathed Cuba!
Always the vast slope drained by the Southern Sea--inseparable with the
slopes drained by the Eastern and Western Seas!
The area the eighty-third year of these States[1]--the three and a half
millions of square miles;
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main--the
thirty thousand miles of river navigation,
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings--
Always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches;
Always the free range and diversity! Always the continent of Democracy!
Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travellers, Canada,
the snows;
Always these compact lands--lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing
the huge oval lakes;
Always the West, with strong native persons--the increasing density there--
the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;
All sights, South, North, East--all deeds, promiscuously done at all times,
All characters, movements, growths--a few noticed, myriads unnoticed.
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