The men, and the work of the men, on railroads, coasters, fish-boats, canals; The daily routine of your own or any man's life--the shop, yard, store, or factory; These shows all near you by day and night-workmen! whoever you are, your daily life! In that and them the heft of the heaviest--in them far more than you estimated, and far less also; In them realities for you and me--in them poems for you and me; In them, not yourself--you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of estimation; In them the development good--in them, all themes and hints. I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile--I do not advise you to stop; I do not say leadings you thought great are not great; But I say that none lead to greater than those lead to. 7. Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best, In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest; Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place--not for another hour, but this hour; Man in the first you see or touch--always in friend, brother, nighest neighbour--Woman in mother, sister, wife; The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere, You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine and strong life, And all else giving place to men and women like you. _SONG OF THE BROAD-AXE._ 1. Weapon, shapely, naked, wan; Head from the mother's bowels drawn! Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one! Grey-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown! Resting the grass amid and upon, To be leaned, and to lean on. Strong shapes, and attributes of strong shapes--masculine trades, sights and sounds; Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music; Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ. 2. Welcome are all earth's lands, each for its kind; Welcome are lands of pine and oak; Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig; Welcome are lands of gold; Welcome are lands of wheat and maize--welcome those of the grape; Welcome are lands of sugar and rice; Welcome are cotton-lands--welcome those of the white potato and sweet potato; Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies; Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings, Welcome the measureless grazing-lands--welcome the teeming soil of orchards, flax, honey, hemp; Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands; Lands rich as lands of gold, or wheat and fruit lands; Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores; Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc; LANDS OF IRON! lands of the make of the axe! 3.