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And he says, Good-day, my brother! to Cudge that
hoes in the sugar-field,
And both understand him, and know that his speech
is right.

13. He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,
He walks among the Congress, and one representative
says to another, Here is our equal, appearing and
new.

14. Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
And the soldiers suppose him to be a captain, and the
sailors that he has followed the sea,
And the authors take him for an author, and the
artists for an artist,
And the laborers perceive he could labor with them
and love them,
No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow
it, or has followed it,
No matter what the nation, that he might find his
brothers and sisters there.

15. The English believe he comes of their English stock,
A Jew to the Jew he seems—a Russ to the Russ—
usual and near, removed from none.

16. Whoever he looks at in the traveller's coffee-house
claims him,
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is
sure, and the Spaniard is sure, and the island
Cuban is sure;
The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on
the Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or Sacramento,
or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him.