BY BLUE ONTARIO'S SHORE By blue Ontario's shore, 1 As I mused of these warlike days and of peace return'd, and the dead that return no more, A Phantom gigantic, superb, with stern visage accosted me, Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America, chant me the carol of victory, And strike up the marches of Libertad, marches more powerful yet, And sing me before you go the song of the throes of Democracy. (Democracy, the destin'd conqueror yet treacherous lip-smiles everywhere, And death and infidelity at every step.) A Nation announcing itself, 2 I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated, I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms. A breed whose proof is in time and deeds, What we are we are, nativity is answer enough to objections, We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded, We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves, We are executive in ourselves, we are sufficient in the variety of ourselves, We are the most beautiful to ourselves and in ourselves, We stand self-pois'd in the middle, branching thence over the world, From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn. Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves, Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only. (0 Mother-O Sisters dear! If we are lost, no victor else has destroy'd us, It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.) 3 Have you thought there could be but a single supreme? There can be any number of supremes-one does not countervail another any more than one eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another. All is for individuals, all is for you, No condition is prohibited, not God's or any. All comes by the body, only health puts you rapport with the universe. Produce great Persons, the rest follows. Piety and conformity to them that like, Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like, I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives! I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every one I meet, Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew before? Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense? (With pangs and cries as thine own, O bearer of many chil dren, These clamours wild to a race of pride I give.) O land, would you be freer than all that has ever been before? If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me. Fear grace, elegance, civilisation, delicatesse, Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice, Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men. 5 Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials, America brings builders, and brings its own styles. The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work and pass'd to other spheres, A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done. America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards, Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound, initiates the true use of precedents, Does not repel them or the past or what they have produced under their forms, Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the house, Perceives that it waits a little while in the door, that it was fittest for its days, That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches, And that he shall be fittest for his days. Any period one nation must lead, One land must be the promise and reliance of the future. These States are the amplest poem, Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations, Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the day and night, Here is what moves in magnificent masses careless of particulars, Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the soul loves, Here the flowing trains, here the crowds, equality, diversity, the soul loves. 6 Land of lands and bards to corroborate! Of them standing among them, one lifts to the light a westbred face, To him the hereditary countenance bequeath'd both mother's and father's, His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees, Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits, Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him, Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him, Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes, Colum bia, Niagara, Hudson, spending themselves lovingly in him, If the Atlantic coast stretch or the Pacific coast stretch, he stretching with them North or South, Spanning between them East and West, and touching whatever is between them, Growths growing from him to offset the growths of pine, cedar, hemlock, live-oak, locust, chestnut, hickory, cottonwood, orange, magnolia, Tangles as tangled in him as any canebrake or swamp, He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests coated with northern transparent ice, Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna, upland prairie, Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the fish-hawk, mocking-bird, night-heron, and eagle, His spirit surrounding his country's spirit, unclosed to good and evil, Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and present times, Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red aborigines, Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, embryo stature and muscle, The haughty defiance of the Year One, war, peace, the formation of the Constitution, The separate States, the simple elastic scheme, the immigrants, The Union always swarming with blatherers and always sure and impregnable, The unsurvey'd interior, log-houses, clearings, wild animals, hunters, trappers, Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, the gestation of new States, Congress convening every Twelfth-month, the members duly coming up from the uttermost parts, Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, especially the young men, Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships, the gait they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors, The freshness and candour of their physiognomy, the copiousness and decision of their phrenology, The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their ñerceness when wrong'd, The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their curiosity, good temper, and open-handedness, the whole composite make, The prevailing ardour and enterprise, the large amativeness, The perfect equality of the female with the male, the fluid movement of the population, The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling, golddigging, Wharf-hemm'd cities, railroad and steamboat lines intersecting all points, Factories, mercantile life, labour-saving machinery, the Northeast, North-west, South-west, Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantation life, Slavery-the murderous, treacherous conspiracy to raise it upon the ruins of all the rest, On and on to the grapple with it-Assassin! then your life or ours to the stake, and respite no more. 7 (Lo, high toward heaven, this day, Liberated, from the conqueress' field return'd, |