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Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and
shades in the breeze,
Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up,
holding on by low scragged limbs,
Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through
the leaves of the brush,
Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and
the wheat-lot,
Where the bat flies in the Seventh Month eve—
Where the great gold-bug drops through the
dark,
Where the flails keep time on the barn floor,
Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree
and flows to the meadow,
Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the
tremulous shuddering of their hides,
Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen—Where
andirons straddle the hearth-slab—Where cobwebs
fall in festoons from the rafters,
Where trip-hammers crash—Where the press is
whirling its cylinders,
Wherever the human heart beats with terrible
throes out of its ribs,
Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, floating
in it myself and looking composedly down,
Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose—Where
the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented
sand,
Where the she-whale swims with her calf, and never
forsakes it,
Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant
of smoke,
Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out
of the water,