Stave - machines, planing - machines, reaping - machines, ploughing - machines, thrashing - machines, steam wagons, The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray; Pyrotechny, letting off coloured fire-works at night, fancy figures and jets, Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the butcher in his killing-clothes, The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the scalder's tub, gutting, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's maul, and the plenteous winter-work of pork-packing, Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice—the barrels and the half and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high piles on wharves and levees, The men, and the work of the men, on railroads, coasters, fish-boats, canals; The daily routine of your own or any man's life—the shop, yard, store, or factory; These shows all near you by day and night—workmen ! whoever you are, your daily life! In that and them the heft of the heaviest in them far more than you estimated, and far less also; In them realities for you and me—in them poems for you and me; In them, not yourself—you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of estimation; In them the development good—in them, all themes and hints. I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile—I do not advise you to stop; I do not say leadings you thought great are not great; 7. Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best, In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest; Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place —not for another hour, but this hour; Man in the first you see or touch—always in friend, brother, nighest neighbour—Woman in mother, sister, wife; The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or any where, You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine and strong life, And all else giving place to men and women like you. I SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE. I. WEAPON, shapely, naked, wan; Head from the mother's bowels drawn ! Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one ! Grey-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown! Resting the grass amid and upon, To be leaned, and to lean on. Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes—masculine trades, sights and sounds; Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music; Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ. 2. Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind; Welcome are lands of pine and oak; Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig; Welcome are lands of gold; Welcome are lands of wheat and maize—welcome those of the grape; Welcome are lands of sugar and rice; Welcome the cotton-lands—welcome those of the white potato and sweet potato; Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies; Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings; Welcome the measureless grazing-lands— welcome the teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp; Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands; Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands; Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores; Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc; LANDS OF IRON ! lands of the make of the axe! 3. The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it; The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space cleared for a garden, The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves, after the storm is lulled, The wailing and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea, The thought of ships struck in the storm, and put on their beam-ends, and the cutting away of masts; The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashioned houses and barns; The remembered print or narrative, the voyage at a ven ture of men, families, goods, The disembarkation, the founding of a new city, The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it the outset anywhere, The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette, The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle bags; The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimmed faces, The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint, The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the solidification; The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer, Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping, The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry song, the natural life of the woods, the strong day's work, |