O mater! O fils!O brood continental!O flowers of the prairies!O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent, proud!O race of the future! O women!O fathers! O you men of passion and the storm!O native power only! O beauty!O yourself! O God! O divine average!O you bearded roughs! O bards! O all those slum- berers!O arouse! the dawn-bird's throat sounds shrill! Do you not hear the cock crowing?O, as I walk'd the beach, I heard the mournful notes foreboding a tempest—the low, oft-repeated shriek of the diver, the long-lived loon;
[ begin page 106 ]ppp.01500.114.jpgO I heard, and yet hear, angry thunder;—O you sailors! O ships! make quick preparation!O from his masterful sweep, the warning cry of the eagle!(Give way there, all! It is useless! Give up your spoils;)O sarcasms! Propositions! (O if the whole world should prove indeed a sham, a sell!)O I believe there is nothing real but America and freedom!O to sternly reject all except Democracy!O imperator! O who dare confront you and me?O to promulgate our own! O to build for that which builds for mankind!O feuillage! O North! O the slope drained by the Mexican sea!O all, all inseparable—ages, ages, ages!O a curse on him that would dissever this Union for any reason whatever!O climates, labors! O good and evil! O death!O you strong with iron and wood! O Personality!O the village or place which has the greatest man or woman! even if it be only a few ragged huts;O the city where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men;O a wan and terrible emblem, by me adopted!O shapes arising! shapes of the future centuries!O muscle and pluck forever for me!O workmen and workwomen forever for me!O farmers and sailors! O drivers of horses forever for me!O I will make the new bardic list of trades and tools!O you coarse and wilful! I love you!
[ begin page 107 ]ppp.01500.115.jpgO South! O longings for my dear home! O soft and sunny airs!O pensive! O I must return where the palm grows and the mocking-bird sings, or else I die!O equality! O organic compacts! I am come to be your born poet!O whirl, contest, sounding and resounding! I am your poet, because I am part of you;O days by-gone! Enthusiasts! Antecedents!O vast preparations for These States! O years!O what is now being sent forward thousands of years to come!O mediums! O to teach! to convey the invisible faith!To promulge real things! to journey through all The States!O creation! O to-day! O laws! O unmitigated adoration!O for mightier broods of orators, artists, and singers!O for native songs! carpenter's, boatman's, plough- man's songs! shoemaker's songs!O haughtiest growth of time! O free and extatic!O what I, here, preparing, warble for!O you hastening light! O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you too will ascend;O so amazing and so broad! up there resplendent, darting and burning;O prophetic! O vision staggered with weight of light! with pouring glories!O copious! O hitherto unequalled!O Libertad! O compact! O union impossible to dissever!O my Soul! O lips becoming tremulous, powerless!O centuries, centuries yet ahead!
[ begin page 108 ]ppp.01500.116.jpgO voices of greater orators! I pause—I listen for you!O you States! Cities! defiant of all outside authority! I spring at once into your arms! you I most love!O you grand Presidentiads! I wait for you!New history! New heroes! I project you!Visions of poets! only you really last! O sweep on! sweep on!O Death! O you striding there! O I cannot yet!O heights! O infinitely too swift and dizzy yet!O purged lumine! you threaten me more than I can stand!O present! I return while yet I may to you!O poets to come, I depend upon you!