found and nations born, thou born America,
For purpose vast, man's long probation fill'd,
Thou rondure of
the world at last accomplish'd.
5
Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty,
Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness,
Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and
countless stars above,
Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains,
trees,
With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention,
Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee.
Down from the gardens of Asia descending radiating,
Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after
them,
Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explorations,
With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never-
happy hearts,
With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul?
and Whither O mocking life?
Ah who shall soothe these feverish children?
Who justify these restless explorations?
Who speak the secret of impassive earth?
Who bind it to us? what is this separate Nature so unnatural?
What is this earth to our affections? (unloving earth, without
a throb to answer ours,
Cold earth, the place of graves.)
Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried
out,
Perhaps even now the time has arrived.
After
the seas are all cross'd, (as they seem already cross'd,)
After the great captains and engineers have
accomplish'd
their work,
After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the
geologist, ethnologist,
Finally
shall come the poet worthy that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.
Then not your
deeds only O voyagers, O scientists and
inventors, shall be justified,
All these hearts as of fretted children
shall be sooth'd,
All affection shall be fully responded to, the secret shall be
told,
All these separations and
gaps shall be taken up and hook'd and
link'd together,
The whole earth, this cold, impassive, voiceless
earth, shall
be completely justified,
Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish'd and compacted
by the
true son of God, the poet,
(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains,
He shall double
the cape of Good Hope to some purpose,)
Nature and Man shall be disjoin'd and diffused no more,
The
true son of God shall absolutely fuse them.
6
Year of the purpose accomplish'd!
Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans!
(No mere doge of Venice now wedding the Adriatic,)
I see O year in you the vast terraqueous globe given and
giving all,
Europe to Asia, Africa join'd, and they to the New World,
The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival
garland,
As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand.
Passage to India!
Cooling airs from Caucasus, far, soothing cradle of man,
The river Euphrates flowing,
the past lit up again.
Lo soul, the retrospect brought forward,
The old, most populous, wealthiest of earth's lands,
The streams
of the Indus and the Ganges and their many
affluents,
(I my shores of America walking to-day behold,
resuming all,)
The tale of Alexander on his warlike marches suddenly dying,
On one side China and on
the other side Persia and Arabia,
To the south the great seas and the bay of Bengal,
The flowing literatures,
tremendous epics, religions, castes,
Old occult Brahma interminably far back, the tender and
junior Buddha,
Central
and southern empires and all their belongings,
possessors,
The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe,
The
traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium,
the Arabs, Portuguese,
The first travelers famous
yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor,
Doubts to be solv'd, the map incognita, blanks to be fill'd,
The foot of
man unstay'd, the hands never at rest,
Thyself O soul that will not brook a challenge.
The mediaeval navigators rise before me,
The world of 1492, with its awaken'd enterprise,
Something
swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth
in spring,
The sunset splendor of chivalry declining.
And
who art thou sad shade?
Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary,
With majestic limbs and pious beaming
eyes,
Spreading around with every look of thine a golden world,
Enhuing it with gorgeous hues.
As the chief histrion,
Down to the footlights walks in some great scena,
Dominating the rest I see the
Admiral himself,
(History's type of courage, action, faith,)
Behold him sail from Palos leading his little fleet,
His voyage behold, his return, his great fame,
His misfortunes,
calumniators, behold him a prisoner,
chain'd,
Behold his dejection, poverty, death.
| Previous chapter/page | Back | Home | Email this | Search | Discuss | Bookmark | Next chapter/page |