In dimples still the water slips
Where thou hast dipt thy finger-tips;
  Just, just beyond, forever burn
  Gleams of a grace without return;
  Upon thy shade I plant my foot,
And through my frame strange raptures shoot; 20
All of thee but thyself I grasp;
  I seem to fold thy luring shape,
And vague air to my bosom clasp,
  Thou lithe, perpetual Escape!

One mask and then another drops,
And thou art secret as before;
  Sometimes with flooded ear I list,
  And hear thee, wondrous organist,
From mighty continental stops
A thunder of new music pour; 30
Through pipes of earth and air and stone
Thy inspiration deep is blown;
Through mountains, forests, open downs,
Lakes, railroads, prairies, states, and towns,
Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on
From Maine to utmost Oregon;
The factory-wheels in cadence hum,
From brawling parties concords come;
All this I hear, or seem to hear,
But when, enchanted, I draw near 40
To mate with words the various theme,
Life seems a whiff of kitchen steam,
History an organ-grinder’s thrum,
  For thou hast slipt from it and me
And all thine organ-pipes left dumb,
  Most mutable Perversity!

Not weary yet, I still must seek,
And hope for luck next day, next week;
I go to see the great man ride,
Shiplike, the swelling human tide 50
That floods to bear him into port,
Trophied from Senate-hall and Court;
Thy magnetism, I feel it there,
Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare,
Making the Mob a moment fine
With glimpses of their own Divine,
As in their demigod they see
  Their cramped ideal soaring free;
’Twas thou didst bear the fire about,
  That, like the springing of a mine, 60
Sent up to heaven the street-long shout;
Full well I know that thou wast here,
It was thy breath that brushed my ear;
But vainly in the stress and whirl
I dive for thee, the moment’s pearl.

Through every shape thou well canst run,
Proteus, ’twixt rise and set of sun,
Well pleased with logger-camps in Maine
  As where Milan’s pale Duomo lies
A stranded glacier on the plain, 70
  Its peaks and pinnacles of ice
  Melted in many a quaint device,
And sees, above the city’s din,
Afar its silent Alpine kin: 
I track thee over carpets deep
To wealth’s and beauty’s inmost keep;
Across the sand of bar-room floors
Mid the stale reek of boosing boors;
Where browse the hay-field’s fragrant heats,
Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats; 80
I dog thee through the market’s throngs
To where the sea with myriad tongues
Laps the green edges of the pier,
And the tall ships that eastward steer,
Curtsy their farewells to the town,
O’er the curved distance lessening down: 
I follow allwhere for thy sake,
Touch thy robe’s hem, but ne’er o’ertake,
Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies,
Warm from thy limbs, thy last disguise; 90
But thou another shape hast donned,
And lurest still just, just beyond!