 | Leaves of grass (1872) |  |
14
2
2
Victory, union, faith, identity, time,The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,
Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.
3
This, then, is life;Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions.
4
How curious! how real!Underfoot the divine soil—overhead the sun.
5
See, revolving, the globe;The ancestor-continents, away, group'd together;
The present and future continents, north and south, with the isthmus between.
6
See, vast, trackless spaces;As in a dream, they change, they swiftly fill;
Countless masses debouch upon them;
They are now cover'd with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known.
7
See, projected, through time,For me, an audience interminable.
8
With firm and regular step they wend—they never stop,Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions;
One generation playing its part, and passing on;
Another generation playing its part, and passing on in its turn,
With faces turn'd sideways or backward towards me, to listen,
With eyes retrospective towards me.
| Leaves of grass (1872) | |