A Song of Joys

O to make the most jubilant song! Full of music⁠—full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! Full of common employments⁠—full of grain and trees.

O for the voices of animals⁠—O for the swiftness and balance of fishes! O for the dropping of raindrops in a song! O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

O the joy of my spirit⁠—it is uncaged⁠—it darts like lightning! It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, I will have thousands of globes and all time.

O the engineer’s joys! to go with a locomotive! To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the laughing locomotive! To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance.

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