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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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TO THE LEAVEN'D SOIL THEY TROD.
To the leaven'd soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the
last;
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(Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead, |
But forth from my tent emerging for good—loosing,
untying the tent-ropes;)
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In the freshness, the forenoon air, in the far-stretching
circuits and vistas, again to peace restored,
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To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas
beyond—to the south and the north;
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To the leaven'd soil of the general western world, to
attest my songs,
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(To the average earth, the wordless earth, witness of
war and peace,)
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To the Alleghanian hills, and the tireless Mississippi, |
To the rocks I, calling, sing, and all the trees in the
woods,
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To the plain of the poems of heroes, to the prairie
spreading wide,
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To the far-off sea, and the unseen winds, and the sane
impalpable air;
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…And responding, they answer all, (but not in words,) |
The average earth, the witness of war and peace,
acknowledges mutely;
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The prairie draws me close, as the father, to bosom
broad, the son;
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The Northern ice and rain, that began me, nourish me
to the end;
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But the hot sun of the South is to ripen my songs. |
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