University of Virginia Library

YEARS of the unperform'd! your horizon rises — I see it      parting away for more August dramas;
I see not America only — I see not only Liberty's nation,      but other nations preparing;
I see tremendous entrances and exits — I see new com-     binations — I see the solidarity of races;
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the      world's stage;
(Have the old forces played their parts? are the acts      suitable to them closed?)
I see Freedom, completely arm'd, and victorious, and      very haughty, with Law by her side, both issuing      forth against the idea of caste;
— What historic denouements are these we so rapidly      approach?
I see men marching and countermarching by swift mil      lions;
I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies      broken;
I see the landmarks of European kings removed;
I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all      others give way;)
Never were such sharp questions ask'd as this day;
Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more      like a God;
Lo, how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no      rest;
His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere — he col-     onizes the Pacific, the archipelagoes;
With the steam-ship, the electric telegraph, the news-     paper, the wholesale engines of war,
With these, and the world-spreading factories, he inter-     links all geography, all lands;
— What whispers are these, O lands, running ahead of      you, passing under the seas?
Are all nations communing? is there going to be but      one heart to the globe?
Is humanity forming, en-masse? — for lo! tyrants trem-     ble, crowns grow dim;
The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a gen-     eral divine war;
No one knows what will happen next — such portents      fill the days and nights;
Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vain-     ly try to pierce it, is full of phantoms;
Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes      around me;
This incredible rush and heat — this strange extactic      fever of dreams, O years!
Your dreams, O years, how they penetrate through me!      (I know not whether I sleep or wake!)
The perform'd America and Europe grow dim, retiring      in shadow behind me,
The unperform'd, more gigantic than ever, advance, ad-     vance upon me.