1.

Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;
Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows;
Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape;
Give me fresh corn and wheat—give me serene-moving animals, teaching
        content;
Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus west of the
        Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars;
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can
        walk undisturb'd;
Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman, of whom I should never tire;
Give me a perfect child—give me, away, aside from the noise of the
        world, a rural domestic life;
Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev'd, recluse by myself, for
        my own ears only;
Give me solitude—give me Nature—give me again, O Nature,
        your primal sanities!

These, demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement, and
        rack'd by the war-strife;)
These to procure, incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,
While yet incessantly asking, still I adhere to my city;
Day upon day, and year upon year, O city, walking your streets,
Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time, refusing to give me up;
Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul—you give me forever faces;
(O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries;
I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.)

2.

Keep your splendid silent sun;
Keep your woods, O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods;
Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and orchards;
Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields, where the Ninth-month bees hum;
Give me faces and streets! give me these phantoms incessant and
        endless along the trottoirs!
Give me interminable eyes! give me women! give me comrades and
        lovers by the thousand!
Let me see new ones every day! let me hold new ones by the hand every day!
Give me such shows! give me the streets of Manhattan!
Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching—give me the sound of
        the trumpets and drums!
(The soldiers in companies or regiments—some, starting away, flush'd
        and reckless;
Some, their time up, returning, with thinn'd ranks—young, yet very
        old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;)
Give me the shores and the wharves heavy-fringed with the black ships!
O such for me! O an intense life! O full to repletion, and varied!
The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!
The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the
        torchlight procession!
The dense brigade, bound for the war, with high piled military wagons following;
People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants;
Manhattan streets, with their powerful throbs, with the beating drums, as now;
The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even
        the sight of the wounded;)
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus, with varied
        chorus and light of the sparkling eyes;
Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.