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What do you see, Walt Whitman?
Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?
7
I see a great round wonder rolling through the air;
I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, grave-yards, jails, factories, palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the surface;
I see the shaded part on one side, where the sleepers are sleeping—and the sun-lit part on the other side,
I see the curious silent change of the light and shade,
I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them, as my land is to me.
8
I see plenteous waters;
I see mountain peaks—I see the sierras of Andes and Alleghanies, where they range;
I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts;
I see the giant pinnacles of Elbruz, Kazbek, Bazardjusi,
I see the Rocky Mountains, and the Peak of Winds;
I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps;
I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians—and to the north the Dofrafields, and off at sea Mount Hecla;
I see Vesuvius and Etna—I see the Anahuacs;
I see the Mountains of the Moon, and the Snow Mountains, and the Red Mountains of Madagascar;
I see the Vermont hills, and the long string of Cordilleras;
I see the vast deserts of Western America;
I see the Lybian, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts;
I see huge dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs;
I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones—the Atlantic and Pacific, the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru,
The Japan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of Guinea,
The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the Bay of Biscay,
The clear-sunn'd Mediterranean, and from one to another of its Islands,
The inland fresh-tasted seas of North America,
The White Sea, and the sea around Greenland.
9
I behold the mariners of the world;
Some are in storms—some in the night, with the watch on the look-out;
Some drifting helplessly—some with contagious diseases.
10
I behold the sail and steamships of the world, some in clusters in port, some on their voyages;
Some double the Cape of Storms—some Cape Verde,—others Cape Guardafui, Bon, or Bajadore;
Others Dondra Head—others pass the Straits of Sunda—others Cape Lopatka—others Behring's Straits;
Others Cape Horn—others sail the Gulf of Mexico, or along Cuba or Hayti—others Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay;
Others pass the Straits of Dover—others enter the Wash—others the Firth of Solway—others round Cape Clear—others the Land's End;
Others traverse the Zuyder Zee, or the Scheld;
Others add to the exits and entrances at Sandy Hook;
Others to the comers and goers at Gibraltar, or the Dardanelles;
Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs;
Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena;
Others the Niger or the Congo—others the Indus, the Burampooter and Cambodia;
Others wait at the wharves of Manhattan, steam'd up, ready to start;
Wait, swift and swarthy,in the ports of Australia;
Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples, Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen;
Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama;
Wait at their moorings at Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, Galveston, San Francisco.
