Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/79

Pleased with the tunes of the choir of the white-
washed church,
Pleased with the earnest words of the sweating
Methodist preacher, or any preacher—Impressed
seriously at the camp-meeting,
Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the
whole forenoon—flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate-glass,
Wandering the same afternoon with my face
turned up to the clouds,
My right and left arms round the sides of two
friends, and I in the middle;
Coming home with the silent and dark-cheeked
bush-boy—riding behind him at the drape of
the day,
Far from the settlements, studying the print of animals'
feet, or the moccason print,
By the cot in the hospital, reaching lemonade to a
feverish patient,
By the coffined corpse when all is still, examining
with a candle,
Voyaging to every port, to dicker and adventure,
Hurrying with the modern crowd, as eager and fickle
as any,
Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife
him,
Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts
gone from me a long while,
Walking the old hills of Judea, with the beautiful gentle God by my side,
Speeding through space—speeding through heaven
and the stars,