From song of myself.
XXXI
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the
wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the running
blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my
hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head
surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of
infidels. I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits,
grains, esculent roots, And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over, And
have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, But call any thing back
again when I desire it. In vain the speeding or shyness, In vain the plutonic
rocks send their old heat against my approach, In vain the mastodon retreats
beneath its own powder'd bones, In vain objects stand leagues off and assume
manifold shapes, In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters
lying low, In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky, In vain the snake
slides through the creepers and logs, In vain the elk takes to the inner passes
of the woods, In vain the razor-bill'd auk sails far north to Labrador, I
follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.
Walt Whitman
