Exceeding the Usual Limits

Song of Myself
Verse 14

                                     ...The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,

Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation,
The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close,
Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.

The sharp hoofed moose of the north, the cat on the house sill,
the chickadee, the prairie-dog,
The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,
The brood of the turkey-hen and 

she with her half-spread wings,
 

I see in them and myself the same old law.
The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred
affections, they scorn the best I can do to relate them.

I am enamor'd of growing out-doors,
Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,
Of the builders and steer'rs of ships and the wielders of axes
and mauls, and the drivers of horses,
I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the
first that will take me,
Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,
Scattering it freely forever... 

~By Walt Whitman~

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at

nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!

Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,

You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,

About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas,

Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, 

ample and sufficient rivers,

Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,

Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,

We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward,

Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,

We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us,

We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,

You furnish your parts toward eternity,

Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

~~Crossing Brooklyn Ferry~~

by Walt Whitman 1856