The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses,
the block swags underneath on its tied-over
chain,
The negro that drives the long dray of the
stone-yard, steady and tall he stands pois'd
on one leg on the string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and
loosens over his hip-band,
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the
slouch of his hat away from his
forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls
on the black of his polish'd and perfect
limbs.
I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I
do not stop there,
I go with the team also.
In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward
as well as forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or
object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.
Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the
leafy shade, what is that you express in your
eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read
in my life.
My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my
distant and day-long ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.
I believe in those wing'd purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within
me,
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown
intentional,
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is
not something else,
And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut,
yet trills pretty well to me,
And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of
me.