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Walt Whitman · Leaves of Grass

Poem 317 of 382 · Sands at Seventy

Red Jacket (From Aloft)

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Upon this scene, this show, Yielded to-day by fashion, learning, wealth, (Nor in caprice alone--some grains of deepest meaning,) Haply, aloft, (who knows?) from distant sky-clouds’ blended shapes, As some old tree, or rock or cliff, thrill’d with its soul, Product of Nature’s sun, stars, earth direct--a towering human form, In hunting-shirt of film, arm’d with the rifle, a half-ironical smile curving its phantom lips, Like one of Ossian’s ghosts looks down.

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