Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/263

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Leaves of Grass.
255

You neighbor of the Danube!
You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the
Weser! you working-woman too!
You Sardinian! you Bavarian! you Swabian! Saxon!
Wallachian! Bulgarian!
You citizen of Prague! you Roman! Neapolitan!
Greek!
You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!
You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or
Caucasus!
You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions
feeding!
You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the
saddle, shooting arrows to the mark!
You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar
of Tartary!
You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!
You Jew journeying in your old age through every
risk, to stand once on Syrian ground!
You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!
You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream
of the Euphrates! you peering amid the ruins of
Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat!
You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle
of the minarets of Mecca!
You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Babelmandel,
ruling your families and tribes!
You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth,
Damascus, or Lake Tiberias!
You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining
in the shops of Lassa!
You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar,
Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo!