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 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 of increase, growth, recuperation, The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony. O to go back to the place where I was born,
To hear the birds sing once more, To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more, And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more. O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast,
To continue and be employ'd there all my life, The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low water, The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher; I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear,
Is the tide out? I Join the group of clam-diggers on the flats, I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man; In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on the ice — I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice, Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my brood of tough boys accompanying me,
My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one else so well as they love to be with me, By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me. Another time mackerel-taking, Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the water for miles;
Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the brown-faced crew; Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced body, My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the coils of slender rope, In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my companions.
O boating on the rivers, The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers, The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars, The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook supper at evening.
O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again! I feel the ship's motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning me, I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, There — she blows! Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest — we descend, wild with excitement,
I leap in the lower'd boat, we row toward our prey where he lies, We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass, lethargic, basking, I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his vigorous arm; O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling, running to windward, tows me,
Again I see him rise to breathe, we row close again, I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in the wound, Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast, As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and narrower, swiftly cutting the water — I see him die,
He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then falls flat and still in the bloody foam. O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all! My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard, My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.
O ripen'd joy of womanhood! O happiness at last! I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother, How clear is my mind — how all people draw nigh to me! What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more than the bloom of youth?
What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me? O the orator's joys! To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the ribs and throat, To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,
To lead America — to quell America with a great tongue. O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving identity through materials and loving them, observing characters and absorbing them, My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch, reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like, The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh,
My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes, Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which finally see, Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates. O the farmer's joys!
Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese’, Kanadian's, Iowan's, Kansian's, Missourian's, Oregonese’ joys! To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work, To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops,
To plough land in the spring for maize, To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall. O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore, To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore.
O the joy a manly self-hood! To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown, To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,
To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth. O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave, To meet life as a powerful conqueror,
No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms, To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving my interior soul impregnable, And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me. For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating — the joy of death!
The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons, Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd to powder, or buried, My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres, My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices, eternal uses of the earth.
O to sail to sea in a ship! To leave this steady unendurable land, To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the houses, To leave you O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,
To sail and sail and sail! O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys! To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on! To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,
A ship itself, ( see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,) A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.
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