University of Virginia Library

1  TO ORATISTS — to male or female,
Vocalism, breath, measure, concentration, determina-
tion, and the divine power to use words.
2   Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long      trial? from vigorous practice? from physique?
Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?
Come duly to the divine power to use words?
3  For only at last, after many years — after chastity,      friendship, procreation, prudence, and naked-     ness;
After treading ground and breasting river and lake;
After a loosen'd throat — after absorbing eras, temper-     aments, races — after knowledge, freedom,      crimes;
After complete faith — after clarifyings, elevations, and      removing obstructions;
After these, and more, it is just possible there comes      to a man, a woman, the divine power to use      words.
4  Then toward that man or that woman, swiftly hasten      all — None refuse all attend;
Armies, ships, antiquities, the dead, libraries, paintings,      machines, cities hate, despair, amity, pain, theft,      murder, aspiration, from in close ranks;
They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently      through the month of that man, or that woman.
5  O I see arise orators fit for inland America;
And I see it is as slow to become an orator as to be-     come a man;
And I see that power is folded in a great vocalism.
6  Of a grant vocalism, the merciless light thereof shall      pour, and the storm rage,
Every flash shall be a revelation, an insult,
The glaring flame on depths, on heights, on suns, on      stars,
On the interior and exterior of man or woman,
On the laws of Nature — on passive materials,
On what you called death — (and what to you there-     fore was death,
As far as there can be death.)