Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892. Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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13
The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain,
The negro that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and
tall he stands pois'd on one leg on the string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over
his hip-band,
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his
hat away from his forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black
of his polish'd and perfect limbs.
I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop
there,
I go with the team also.
In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as
forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object miss-
ing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.
Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade,
what is that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.
My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and
day-long ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.
I believe in those wing'd purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional,
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something
else,
And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty
well to me,
And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.