by hunters,
    rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his
    fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives—­and I, plunging at the
    hunters, corner’d and desperate,
In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the
    countless workmen working in the shops,
And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof—­and no less in myself
    than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself,
Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands—­my body no more
    inevitably united, part to part, and made out of a thousand
    diverse contributions one identity, any more than my lands
    are inevitably united and made one identity;
Nativities, climates, the grass of the great pastoral Plains,
Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil—­these me,
These affording, in all their particulars, the old feuillage to me
    and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the union
    of them, to afford the like to you? 
Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you
    also be eligible as I am? 
How can I but as here chanting, invite you for yourself to collect
    bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of these States?

[Book XI]

} A Song of Joys

O to make the most jubilant song! 
Full of music—­full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! 
Full of common employments—­full of grain and trees.

O for the voices of animals—­O for the swiftness and balance of fishes! 
O for the dropping of raindrops in a song! 
O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

O the joy of my spirit—­it is uncaged—­it darts like lightning! 
It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,
I will have thousands of globes and all time.

O the engineer’s joys! to go with a locomotive! 
To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the
    laughing locomotive! 
To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance.

O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides! 
The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh
    stillness of the woods,
The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the forenoon.

O the horseman’s and horsewoman’s joys! 
The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool
    gurgling by the ears and hair.

O the fireman’s joys! 
I hear the alarm at dead of night,
I hear bells, shouts!  I pass the crowd, I run! 
The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.

O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena in
    perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.

O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is
    capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods.

O the mother’s joys! 
The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the
    patiently yielded life.