TO FOREIGN LANDS. I HEARD that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New And to define America, her athletic Democracy, Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you (wantedded by the reader "the histor You who celebrate bygones, " I project the future.' Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself, Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests, I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself in his own rights, Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, To thee old cause! TO THEE OLD CAUSE. Thou peerless, passionate, good cause, Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands, (I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee. (A war O soldiers not for itself alone, Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this book.) Thou orb of many orbs! Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre! With all its angry and vehement play of causes, (With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,) These recitatives for thee, - my book and the war are one, Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, I MET a seer, EIDÓLONS. Passing the hues and objects of the world, Put in thy chants said he, No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in, Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all, That of eidolons. Ever the dim beginning, Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle, Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again,) Eidolons! eidolons! Ever the mutable, Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering, Lo, I or you, Or woman, man, or state, known or unknown, The ostent evanescent, The substance of an artist's mood or savan's studies long, To fashion his eidolon. Of every human life, (The units gather'd, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left out,) The whole or large or small summ'd, added up, In its eidólon. The old, old urge, Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles, The old, old urge, eidolons. The present now and here, America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl, Of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing, |