As I sailed down the Mississippi,
As I wandered over the prairies,
As I have lived--As I have looked through my windows, my eyes,
As I went forth in the morning--As I beheld the light breaking in the east;
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the
Western Sea;
As I roamed the streets of inland Chicago-whatever streets I have roamed;
Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.
I sing the Equalities;
I sing the endless finales of things;
I say Nature continues--Glory continues;
I praise with electric voice:
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe;
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.
O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you unmitigated adoration.
_LONGINGS FOR HOME._
O Magnet South! O glistening, perfumed South! my South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! good and evil! O all dear to
me!
O dear to me my birth-things--all moving things, and the trees where I was
born,[1] the grains, plants, rivers;
Dear to me my own slow, sluggish rivers, where they flow distant over flats
of silvery sands or through swamps;
Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the
Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine--
O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their banks
again.
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