Always the West with strong native persons, the increasing density there, the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders; All sights, South, North, East⁠—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times, All characters, movements, growths, a few noticed, myriads unnoticed, Through Mannahatta’s streets I walking, these things gathering, On interior rivers by night in the glare of pine knots, steamboats wooding up, Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke and Delaware, In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks the hills, or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink, In a lonesome inlet a sheldrake lost from the flock, sitting on the water rocking silently, In farmers’ barns oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done, they rest standing, they are too tired, Afar on arctic ice the she-walrus lying drowsily while her cubs play around,

355