Leaves of Grass (1867)


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I WAS LOOKING A LONG WHILE.

I was looking a long while for the history of the past
         for myself, and for these chants—and now I
         have found it;
It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them
         I neither accept nor reject;)
It is no more in the legends than in all else;
It is in the present—it is this earth to-day;
It is in Democracy—in this America—the old world
         also;
It is the life of one man or one woman to-day, the
         average man of to-day;
It is languages, social customs, literatures, arts;
It is the broad show of artificial things, ships, ma-
         chinery, politics, creeds, modern improvements,
         and the interchange of nations,
All for the average man of to-day.
 
 
 
 
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