Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass
the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd
game,
Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog
and gun by my side.
The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts
the sparkle and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout
joyously from the
deck.
The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt
for me,
I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and
had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the
chowder-kettle.
I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in
the far west, the bride was a
red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and
dumbly
smoking,
they had moccasins to their feet and large
thick blankets hanging from
their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly
in skins, his
luxuriant
beard and curls protected his neck, he held
his bride by the
hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her
coarse straight
locks
descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd
to her feet.
The runaway slave came to my house and stopt
outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the
woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him
limpsy and weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and
assured him,
And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated
body and bruis'd feet,
And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and
gave him some coarse clean
clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and
his awkwardness,
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his
neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated
and pass'd north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd
in the corner.
1891 edition
on the Whitman Archive