Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/137

The echoes resounding through the vacant building;
The huge store-house carried up in the city, well
under way,
The six framing-men, two in the middle and two at
each end, carefully bearing on their shoulders a
heavy stick for a cross-beam,
The crowded line of masons with trowels in their
right hands, rapidly laying the long side-wall,
two hundred feet from front to rear,
The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click
of the trowels striking the bricks,
The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike
in its place, and set with a knock of the
trowel-handle,
The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortarboards,
and the steady replenishing by the hod-men;
Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of
well-grown apprentices,
The swing of their axes on the square-hewed log,
shaping it toward the shape of a mast,
The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly
into the pine,
The butter-colored chips flying off in great flakes and
slivers,
The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips
in easy costumes;
The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads,
floats, stays against the sea;
The city fireman—the fire that suddenly bursts forth
in the close-packed square,
The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble
stepping and daring,