I do not ask the wounded person how he feels .... I myself become the wounded person,

Agonies are one of my changes of garments;

They taunt my dizzy ears .... they beat me violently over the head with their whip-stocks.

The riders spur their unwilling horses and haul close,

I fall on the weeds and stones,

I clutch the rails of the fence .... my gore dribs thinned with the ooze of my skin,

Hell and despair are upon me .... crack and again crack the marksmen,

I am the hounded slave .... I wince at the bite of the dogs,

All these I feel or am.

The murderous buckshot and the bullets,

The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck,

The hounded slave that flags in the race and leans by the fence, blowing and covered with sweat,

The mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry wood, and her children gazing on;

The disdain and calmness of martyrs,

I am the man .... I suffered .... I was there.

All this I swallow and it tastes good .... I like it well, and it becomes mine,

How the silent old-faced infants, and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipped unshaved men;

How the lank loose-gowned women looked when boated from the side of their prepared graves,

How he saved the drifting company at last,

And chalked in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, We will not desert you;

How he knuckled tight and gave not back one inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights,

How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and death chasing it up and down the storm,

The courage of present times and all times;

I understand the large hearts of heroes,

They fetch my man’s body up dripping and drowned.

My voice is the wife’s voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,

And tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.

I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself,

I am a free companion .... I bivouac by invading watchfires.

Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruined city .... the blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities of the globe.

We pass the colossal outposts of the encampments .... we pass with still feet and caution;

We are about approaching some great battlefield in which we are soon to be engaged,

The white-topped mountains point up in the distance .... I fling out my fancies toward them;

The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them .... the scenery is plain in all directions,

Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty,

I ascend to the foretruck .... I take my place late at night in the crow’s nest .... we sail through the arctic sea .... it is plenty light enough,

I go hunting polar furs and the seal .... leaping chasms with a pike-pointed staff .... clinging to topples of brittle and blue.

My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.

I anchor my ship for a little while only,

No guard can shut me off, no law can prevent me.

I help myself to material and immaterial,

My course runs below the soundings of plummets.

I fly the flight of the fluid and swallowing soul,

And look at quintillions ripened, and look at quintillions green.

I visit the orchards of God and look at the spheric product,

I tread day and night such roads.

Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,

Storming enjoying planning loving cautioning,

Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly;

Speeding with tailed meteors .... throwing fire-balls like the rest,