For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,
For that, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,
The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies foreign
     despots.

Without extinction is Liberty, without retrograde is Equality,
They live in the feelings of young men and the best women,
(Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth
    been always ready to fall for Liberty.)

11

For the great Idea,
That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets.

Songs of stern defiance ever ready,
Songs of the rapid arming and the march,
The flag of peace quick- folded, and instead the flag we know,
Warlike flag of the great Idea.

(Angry cloth I saw there leaping!
I stand again in leaden rain your flapping folds saluting,
I sing you over all, flying beckoning through the fight — O the
     hard-contested fight!
The cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles — the hurtled
     balls scream,
The battle-front forms amid the smoke — the volleys pour
     incessant from the line,
Hark, the ringing word Charge! — now the tussle and the
     furious maddening yells,
Now the corpses tumble curl'd upon the ground,
Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you,
Angry cloth I saw there leaping.)

12

Are you he who would assume a place to teach or be a poet
     here in the States?
The place is august, the terms obdurate.

Who would assume to teach here may well prepare himself
     body and mind,
He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make lithe
     himself,
He shall surely be question'd beforehand by me with many
     and stern questions.

Who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America?
Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men?
Have you learn'd the physiology, phrenology, politics,
     geography, pride, freedom, friendship of the land? its
     substratums and objects?
Have you consider'd the organic compact of the first day of
    the first year of Independence, sign'd by the
     Commissioners, ratified by the States, and read by Washington
     at the head of the army?
Have you possess'd yourself of the Federal Constitution?
Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems
     behind them, and assumed the poems and processes of
     Democracy?

Are you faithful to things? do you teach what the land and
     sea, the bodies of men, womanhood, amativeness,
     heroic angers, teach?
Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities?
Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls,
     fierce contentions? are you very strong? are you really of the
     whole People?
Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?
Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating
     now to life itself?
Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these States?
Have you too the old ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality?
Do you hold the like love for those hardening to maturity?
     for the last-born? little and big? and for the errant?

What is this you bring my America?
Is it uniform with my country?
Is it not something that has been better told or done before?
Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some ship?
Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness? — is the good old
    cause in it?
Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians,
     literats, of enemies' lands?
Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?
Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?
Does it sound with trumpet-voice the proud victory of the
     Union in that secession war?
Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?
Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again
     in my strength, gait, face?
Have real employments contributed to it? original makers,
     not mere amanuenses?
Does it meet modern discoveries, calibres, facts, face to face?
What does it mean to American persons, progresses, cities?
     Chicago, Kanada, Arkansas?
Does it see behind the apparent custodians the real custodians
     standing, menacing, silent, the mechanics,