美国总是!永远是我们自己的村庄!永远是佛罗里达的绿色半岛!永远是路易斯安那州无价的三角洲!永远是阿拉巴马州和德克萨斯州的棉田!永远是加利福尼亚的金色丘陵和山谷——以及新墨西哥州的银色山脉!永远温柔的古巴!永远是南海泻出的广阔山坡——与东西海泻出的山坡分不开;这片区域是美国建国83年的领土——350万平方英里;陆地上有一万八千英里的海岸线和海湾海岸——三万英里的内河航道，七百万不同的家庭，以及同样数量的住宅——总是这些，而且还有更多的分支成无数的分支; Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of Democracy! Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows; 10 Always these compact lands--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; 20 Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play around; The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail'd--the farthest polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes; White drift spooning ahead, where the ship in the tempest dashes; On solid land, what is done in cities, as the bells all strike midnight together; In primitive woods, the sounds there also sounding--the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk; In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake--in summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming; In lower latitudes, in warmer air, in the Carolinas, the large black buzzard floating slowly, high beyond the tree tops, Below, the red cedar, festoon'd with tylandria--the pines and cypresses, growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat; Rude boats descending the big Pedee--climbing plants, parasites, with color'd flowers and berries, enveloping huge trees, The waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the wind; 30 The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark--the supper-fires, and the cooking and eating by whites and negroes, Thirty or forty great wagons--the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs, The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees-- the flames--with the black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising; Southern fishermen fishing--the sounds and inlets of North Carolina's coast--the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery--the large sweep-seines--the windlasses on shore work'd by horses--the clearing, curing, and packing-houses; Deep in the forest, in piney woods, turpentine dropping from the incisions in the trees--There are the turpentine works, There are the negroes at work, in good health--the ground in all directions is cover'd with pine straw: --In Tennessee and Kentucky, slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking; In Virginia, the planter's son returning after a long absence, joyfully welcom'd and kiss'd by the aged mulatto nurse; On rivers, boatmen safely moor'd at night-fall, in their boats, under shelter of high banks, Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle-- others sit on the gunwale, smoking and talking; 40 Late in the afternoon, the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp--there are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress tree, and the juniper tree; --Northward, young men of Mannahatta--the target company from an excursion returning home at evening--the musket-muzzles all bear bunches of flowers presented by women; Children at play--or on his father's lap a youn