Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes
and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if they
are not flashes and specks, what are they?
The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and
goods in the windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-planked wharves—the
huge crossing at the ferries,
The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset—
the river between,
Shadows, aureola and mist, light falling on roofs and
gables of white or brown, three miles off,
The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the
tide—the little boat slack-towed astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests,
slapping,
The strata of colored clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint,
away solitary by itself—the spread of purity
it lies motionless in,
The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance
of salt-marsh and shore-mud;
These became part of that child who went forth every
day, and who now goes, and will always go forth
every day,
And these become part of him or her that peruses
them here.
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