Always our old feuillage! Always Florida’s green peninsula—always the priceless delta of Louisiana—always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas, Always California’s golden hills and hollows, and the silver mountains of New Mexico—always soft-breath’d Cuba, Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern sea, inseparable with the slopes drain’d by the Eastern and Western seas, The area the eighty-third year of these States, the three and a half millions of square miles, The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main, the thirty thousand miles of river navigation, The seven millions of distinct families and the same number of dwellings—always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches, Always the free range and diversity—always the continent of Democracy; Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows; Always these compact lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes;
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,