A Thought of Columbus
per.00149.001
A THOUGHT OF COLUMBUS.
The mystery of mysteries, the crude and hurried cease-less flame, spontaneous, bearing on itself. The bubble and the huge, round, concrete orb! A breath of Deity, as thence the bulging universe un-
folding! The many issuing cycles from their precedent minute! The eras of the soul incepting in an hour, Haply the widest, farthest evolutions of the world and
man. Thousands and thousands of miles hence, and now four
centuries back, A mortal impulse thrilling its brain cell, Reck'd or unreck'd, the birth can no longer be postponed: A phantom of the moment, mystic, stalking, sudden, Only a silent thought, yet toppling down of more than
walls of brass or stone. (A flutter at the darkness' edge as if old Time's and
Space's secret revealing.) A thought! a definite thought works out in shape. Four hundred years roll on. The rapid cumulus—trade navigation, war, peace, democ-
racy, roll on; The restless armies and the fleets of time following their
leader—the old camps of ages pitch'd in newer,
larger areas, The tangled, long-deferr'd eclaircissement of human life
and hope boldly begins untying, As here to-day up-grows the Western World. (An added word yet to my song, far Discoverer, as ne'er
before sent back to son of earth— If still thou hearest, hear me Voicing as now—lands, races, arts, bravas to thee O'er the long backward path to thee—one vast con-
sensus, north, south, east, west, Soul plaudits! acclamation! reverent echoes! One manifold, huge memory to thee! oceans and
lands! The modern world to thee and thought of thee!) WALT WHITMAN. CAMDEN, N.J., February and March, 1892. 1
Notes
1. [Copyrighted, 1892, by ONCE A WEEK.] [back]