University of Virginia Library

OF these years I sing,
How they pass through convuls'd pains, as through      parturitions;
How America illustrates birth, gigantic youth, the      promise, the sure fulfilment, despite of people       — Illustrates evil as well as good;
How many hold despairingly yet to the models de-     parted, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and      to infidelity;
How few see the arrived models, the Athletes, The      States — or see freedom or spirituality — or hold      any faith in results,
(But I see the Athletes — and I see the results glorious      and inevitable — and they again leading to other      results;)
How the great cities appear — How the Democratic      masses, turbulent, wilful, as I love them,
How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with      good, the sounding and resounding, keep on      and on;
How society waits unform'd, and is between things      ended and things begun;
How America is the continent of glories, and of the      triumph of freedom, and of the Democracies,      and of the fruits of society, and of all that is      begun;
And how The States are complete in themselves —      And how all triumphs and glories are complete      in themselves, to lead onward,
And how these of mine, and of The States, will in      their turn be convuls'd, and serve other par-     turitions and transitions,
And how all people, sights, combinations, the Demo-     cratic masses, too, serve — and how every fact      serves,
And how now, or at any time, each serves the exquisite      transition of Death.

OF seeds dropping into the ground — of birth,
Of the steady concentration of America, inland, up-     ward, to impregnable and swarming places,
Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and the rest, are      to be,
Of what a few years will show there in Nebraska,      Colorado, Nevada, and the rest;
Of what the feuillage of America is the preparation      for — and of what all the sights, North, South,      East and West, are;
Of the temporary use of materials, for identity's      sake,
Of departing — of the growth of a mightier race than      any yet,
Of myself, soon, perhaps, closing up my songs by      these shores,
Of California — of Oregon — and of me journeying to      live and sing there;
Of the Western Sea — of the spread inland between it      and the spinal river,
Of the great pastoral area, athletic and feminine,
Of all sloping down there where the fresh free giver,      the mother, the Mississippi flows,
Of future men and women there — of happiness in      those high plateaus, ranging three thousand      miles, warm and cold;
Of cities yet unsurvey'd and unsuspected, (as I am      also, and as it must be;)
Of the new and good names — of the strong develop-     ments — of inalienable homesteads;
Of a free and original life there — of simple diet and      clean and sweet blood;
Of litheness, majestic faces, clear eyes, and perfect      physique there;
Of immense spiritual results, future years, each side      of the Anahuacs;
Of these leaves, well understood there, (being made      for that area;)
Of the native scorn of grossness and gain there;
(O it lurks in me night and day — What is gain, after      all, to savageness and freedom?)