A child said, “What is the grass?” fetching it to me with full hands;
    How could I answer the child?  I do not know what it is any more
          than he. 
    I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
          stuff woven. 
    Or, I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
    A scented gift and remembrance designedly dropt,
    Bearing the owner’s name some way in the corners,
      that we may see and remark, and say,
     “Whose?”

    Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
    Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
    In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
    Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill’d game,
    Falling asleep on the gathered leaves with my dog and gun by my side. 
    The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
          and scud,
    My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from
          the deck. 
    The boatman and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
    I tucked my trouser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
    You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

    The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
    I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
    Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,
    And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
    And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and
          bruis’d feet,
    And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some
          coarse clean clothes,
    And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
    And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
    He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north,
    I had him sit next me at table, my firelock lean’d in the corner.

    I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
    And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
    And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

    I understand the large hearts of heroes,
    The courage of present times and all times,
    How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship,
          and Death chasing it up and down the storm,
    How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch and was faithful of
          days and faithful of nights,
    And chalked in large letters on a board, “Be of good cheer, we will
          not desert you”;
    How he followed with them and tack’d with them three days and would
          not give it up,
    How he saved the drifting company at last,
    How the lank loose-gown’d women looked when boated from the side
          of their prepared graves,
    How the silent old-faced infants