Page:Leaves of Grass (1882).djvu/24

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Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian!

Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses!

For you a programme of chants.

Chants of the prairies,

Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican sea,

Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota,

Chants going forth from the centre from Kansas, and thence equidistant,

Shooting in pulses of fire ceaseless to vivify all.

Take my leaves America, take them South and take them North,

Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring,

Surround them East and West, for they would surround you,

And you precedents, connect lovingly with them, for they connect lovingly with you.

I conn'd old times,

I sat studying at the feet of the great masters,

Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me.

In the name of these States shall I scorn the antique?

Why these are the children of the antique to justify it.

Dead poets, philosophs, priests,

Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,

Language-shapers on other shores,

Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,

I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left wafted hither,

I have perused it, own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it,)

Think nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve more than it deserves,

Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it,

I stand in my place with my own day here.

Here lands female and male,

Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the flame of materials,