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32
Leaves of Grass.

45.The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up
the bushy hill,
I peeringly view them from the top.

46.The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the
bedroom;
It is so—I witnessed the corpse—there the pistol
had fallen.

47.The blab of the pave, the tires of carts, sluff of boot-
soles, talk of the promenaders,
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating
thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the
granite floor,
The snow-sleighs, the clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of
snow-balls,
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of roused
mobs,
The flap of the curtained litter, a sick man inside,
borne to the hospital,
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows
and fall,
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star,
quickly working his passage to the centre of
the crowd,
The impassive stones that receive and return so many
echoes,
The Souls moving along—(are they invisible, while
the least of the stones is visible?)
What groans of over-fed or half-starved who fall sun-struck,
or in fits,
What exclamations of women taken suddenly, who
hurry home and give birth to babes,