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.