The group of laborers seated at noontime with their open dinnerkettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child .... the farmer's daughter in the garden or cowyard,
The woodman rapidly swinging his axe in the woods .... the young fellow hoeing corn .... the sleighdriver guiding his six horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers .. two apprentice boys, quite grown, lusty, goodnatured, nativeborn, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,
The coats vests and caps thrown down .. the embrace of love and resistance,
The upperhold and underhold -- the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes -- the play of the masculine muscle through cleansetting trowsers and waistbands,
The slow return from the fire .... the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again -- the listening of the alert,
The natural perfect and varied attitudes .... the bent head, the curved neck, the counting:
Suchlike I love .... I loosen myself and pass freely .... and am at the mother's breast with the little child,
And swim with the swimmer, and wrestle with wrestlers, and march in line with the firemen, and pause and listen and count.
(Walt Whitman, extrait // excerpt, Leaves of Grass)
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