I Was Looking a Long While

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.