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Leaves of Grass.
17

51.Behold! the body includes and is the meaning, the
main concern—and includes and is the Soul;
Whoever you are! how superb and how divine is your
body, or any part of it.

52.Whoever you are! to you endless announcements.

53.Daughter of the lands, did you wait for your poet?
Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and
indicative hand?

54.Toward the male of The States, and toward the
female of The States,
Toward the President, the Congress, the diverse Governors,
the new Judiciary,
Live words—words to the lands.

55. O the lands!
Lands scorning invaders! Interlinked, food-yielding
lands!
Land of coal and iron! Land of gold! Lands of
cotton, sugar, rice!
Odorous and sunny land! Floridian land!
Land of the spinal river, the Mississippi! Land of
the Alleghanies! Ohio's land!
Land of wheat, beef, pork! Land of wool and hemp!
Land of the potato, the apple, and the grape!
Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the
world! Land of those sweet-aired interminable
plateaus! Land there of the herd, the garden,
the healthy house of adobie! Land there of rapt
thought, and of the realization of the stars!
Land of simple, holy, untamed lives!

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