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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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BATHED IN WAR'S PERFUME.
BATHED IN WAR'S PERFUME.
BATHED in war's perfume—delicate flag! |
(Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come
again,)
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O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like
a beautiful woman!
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O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering
men! O the ships they arm with joy!
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O to see you leap and beckon from the tall masts of
ships!
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O to see you peering down on the sailors on the decks! |
Flag like the eyes of women. |
DELICATE CLUSTER.
DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life! |
Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining! |
Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke
of battle pressing!
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How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!) |
Flag cerulean! sunny flag! with the orbs of night dap-
pled!
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Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and crim-
son!
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Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty! |
My sacred one, my mother. |
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SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAY-BREAK.
POET.
1 O A new song, a free song, |
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by
voices clearer,
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By the wind's voice and that of the drum, |
By the banner's voice, and child's voice, and sea's voice,
and father's voice,
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Low on the ground and high in the air, |
On the ground where father and child stand, |
In the upward air where their eyes turn, |
Where the banner at day-break is flapping. |
2 Words! book-words! what are you? |
Words no more, for hearken and see, |
My song is there in the open air—and I must sing, |
With the banner and pennant a-flapping. |
3 I'll weave the chord and twine in, |
Man's desire and babe's desire—I'll twine them in, I'll
put in life;
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I'll put the bayonet's flashing point—I'll let bullets and
slugs whizz;
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(As one carrying a symbol and menace, far into the
future,
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Crying with trumpet voice, Arouse and beware! Beware
and arouse! )
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I'll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of voli-
tion, full of joy;
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Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete, |
With the banner and pennant a-flapping. |
PENNANT.
4 Come up here, bard, bard; |
Come up here, soul, soul; |
Come up here, dear little child, |
To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with
the measureless light.
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CHILD.
5 Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with
long finger?
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And what does it say to me all the while? |
FATHER.
6 Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky; |
And nothing at all to you it says. But look you, my
babe,
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Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see
you the money-shops opening;
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And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the
streets with goods:
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These! ah, these! how valued and toil'd for, these! |
How envied by all the earth! |
POET.
7 Fresh and rosy red, the sun is mounting high; |
On floats the sea in distant blue, careering through its
channels;
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On floats the wind over the breast of the sea, setting in
toward land;
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The great steady wind from west and west-by-south, |
Floating so buoyant, with milk-white foam on the
waters.
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8 But I am not the sea, nor the red sun; |
I am not the wind with girlish laughter; |
Not the immense wind which strengthens—not the wind
which lashes;
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Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror
and death;
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But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings,
sings,
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Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the
land,
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Which the birds know in the woods, mornings and
evenings,
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And the shore-sands know, and the hissing wave, and
that banner and pennant,
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Aloft there flapping and flapping. |
CHILD.
9 O father, it is alive—it is full of people—it has chil-
dren!
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O now it seems to me it is talking to its children! |
I hear it—it talks to me—O it is wonderful! |
O if stretches—it spreads and runs so fast! O my
father,
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It is so broad, it covers the whole sky! |
FATHER.
10 Cease, cease, my foolish babe, |
What you are saying is sorrowful to me—much it dis-
pleases me;
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Behold with the rest, again I say—behold not banners
and pennants aloft;
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But the well-prepar'd pavements behold—and mark the
solid-wall'd houses.
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BANNER AND PENNANT.
11 Speak to the child, O bard, out of Manhattan; |
(The war is over—yet never over….out of it, we are
born to real life and identity;)
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Speak to our children all, or north or south of Man-
hattan,
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Where our factory-engines hum, where our miners
delve the ground,
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Where our hoarse Niagara rumbles, where our prairie-
plows are plowing;
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Speak, O bard! point this day, leaving all the rest, to
us over all—and yet we know not why;
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For what are we, mere strips of cloth, profiting nothing, |
Only flapping in the wind? |
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POET.
12 I hear and see not strips of cloth alone; |
I hear again the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging
sentry;
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I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men—I hear
LIBERTY!
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I hear the drums beat, and the trumpets yet blowing; |
I myself move abroad, swift-rising, flying then; |
I use the wings of the land-bird, and use the wings of
the sea-bird, and look down as from a height;
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I do not deny the precious results of peace—I see pop-
ulous cities, with wealth incalculable;
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I see numberless farms—I see the farmers working in
their fields or barns;
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I see mechanics working—I see buildings everywhere
founded, going up, or finish'd;
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I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad
tracks, drawn by the locomotives;
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I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charles-
ton, New Orleans;
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I see far in the west the immense area of grain—I
dwell awhile, hovering;
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I pass to the lumber forests of the north, and again to
the southern plantation, and again to California;
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Sweeping the whole, I see the countless profit, the busy
gatherings, earned wages;
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See the identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and
haughty States, (and many more to come;)
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See forts on the shores of harbors—see ships sailing in
and out;
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Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen'd
pennant shaped like a sword,
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Runs swiftly up, indicating war and defiance—And now
the halyards have rais'd it,
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Side of my banner broad and blue—side of my starry
banner,
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Discarding peace over all the sea and land. |
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BANNER AND PENNANT.
13 Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider
cleave!
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No longer let our children deem us riches and peace
alone;
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We may be terror and carnage, and are so now; |
Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty
States, (nor any five, nor ten;)
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Nor market nor depot are we, nor money-bank in the
city;
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But these, and all, and the brown and spreading land,
and the mines below, are ours;
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And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great
and small;
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And the fields they moisten are ours, and the crops and
the fruits are ours;
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Bays and channels, and ships sailing in and out, are
ours—and we over all,
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Over the area spread below, the three or four millions
of square miles—the capitals,
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The forty millions of people—O bard! in life and death
supreme,
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We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up
above,
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Not for the present alone, for a thousand years, chant-
ing through you,
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This song to the soul of one poor little child. |
CHILD.
14 O my father, I like not the houses; |
They will never to me be anything—nor do I like
money;
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But to mount up there I would like, O father dear—
that banner I like;
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That pennant I would be, and must be. |
FATHER.
15 Child of mine, you fill me with anguish; |
To be that pennant would be too fearful; |
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Little you know what it is this day, and after this day,
forever;
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It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything; |
Forward to stand in front of wars—and O, such wars;
—what have you to do with them?
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With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death? |
POET.
16 Demons and death then I sing; |
Put in all, aye all, will I—sword-shaped pennant for
war, and banner so broad and blue,
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And a pleasure new and extatic, and the prattled yearn-
ing of children,
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Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land, and the
liquid wash of the sea;
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And the black ships, fighting on the sea, enveloped in
smoke;
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And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling
cedars and pines;
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And the whirr of drums, and the sound of soldiers
marching, and the hot sun shining south;
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And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my
eastern shore, and my western shore the same;
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And all between those shores, and my ever-running
Mississippi, with bends and chutes;
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And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my
fields of Missouri;
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The CONTINENT—devoting the whole identity, without
reserving an atom,
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Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all,
and the yield of all.
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BANNER AND PENNANT.
17 Aye all! for ever, for all! |
From sea to sea, north and south, east and west, |
(The war is completed, the price is paid, the title is
settled beyond recall;)
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Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole; |
No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound, |
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But, out of the night emerging for good, our voice per-
suasive no more,
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Croaking like crows here in the wind. |
POET.
( Finale .)
18 My limbs, my veins dilate; |
The blood of the world has fill'd me full—my theme is
clear at last:
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—Banner so broad, advancing out of the night, I sing
you haughty and resolute;
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I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen'd
and blinded;
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My sight, my hearing and tongue, are come to me, (a
little child taught me;)
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I hear from above, O pennant of war, your ironical call
and demand;
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Insensate! insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you,) O
banner!
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Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all
their prosperity, (if need be, you shall again
have every one of those houses to destroy them;
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You thought not to destroy those valuable houses,
standing fast, full of comfort, built with money;
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May they stand fast, then? Not an hour, except you,
above them and all, stand fast;)
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—O banner! not money so precious are you, not farm
produce you, nor the material good nutriment,
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Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the
ships;
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Not the superb ships, with sail-power or steam-power,
fetching and carrying cargoes,
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Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues,—But
you, as henceforth I see you,
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Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of
stars, (ever-enlarging stars;)
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Divider of day-break you, cutting the air, touch'd by
the sun, measuring the sky,
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(Passionately seen and yearn'd for by one poor little
child,
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While others remain busy, or smartly talking, forever
teaching thrift, thrift;)
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O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like
a snake, hissing so curious,
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Out of reach—an idea only—yet furiously fought for,
risking bloody death—loved by me!
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So loved! O you banner leading the day, with stars
brought from the night!
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Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all—
(absolute owner of ALL)—O banner and pennant!
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I too leave the rest—great as it is, it is nothing—houses,
machines are nothing—I see them not;
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I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad,
with stripes, I sing you only,
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Flapping up there in the wind. |
ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLORS.
( A Reminiscence of 1864.)
1
WHO are you, dusky woman, so ancient, hardly human, |
With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare
bony feet?
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Why, rising by the roadside here, do you the colors
greet?
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2
('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sand and pines, |
Forth from thy hovel door, thou, Ethiopia, com'st to me, |
As, under doughty Sherman, I march toward the sea.) |
3
Me, master, years a hundred, since from my parents sun-
der'd,
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A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught; |
Then hither me, across the sea, the cruel slaver brought . |
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4
No further does she say, but lingering all the day, |
Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her
darkling eye,
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And curtseys to the regiments, the guidons moving by. |
5
What is it, fateful woman—so blear, hardly human? |
Why wag your head, with turban bound—yellow, red
and green?
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Are the things so strange and marvelous, you see or
have seen?
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Lo! Victress on the Peaks!
Lo! Victress on the peaks! |
Where thou, with mighty brow, regarding the world, |
(The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against
thee;)
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Out of its countless, beleaguering toils, after thwarting
them all;)
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Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee, |
Flauntest now unharm'd, in immortal soundness and
bloom—lo! in these hours supreme,
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No poem proud, I, chanting, bring to thee—nor mastery's
rapturous verse;
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But a book, containing night's darkness, and blood-
dripping wounds,
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World, Take Good Notice.
WORLD, take good notice, silver stars fading, |
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching, |
Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning, |
Scarlet, significant, hands off warning, |
Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores. |
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Thick-Sprinkled Bunting.
THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars! |
Long yet your road, fateful flag!—long yet your road,
and lined with bloody death!
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For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world! |
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your
threads, greedy banner!
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—Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest borne, to
flaunt unrival'd?
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O hasten, flag of man! O with sure and steady step,
passing highest flags of kings,
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Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol—run up
above them all,
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Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting! |
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