_
What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities
myself;
All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.
What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities
myself;
All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.
Whitman
You haggard, uncouth, untutored Bedowee!
You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!
You bather bathing in the Ganges!
You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man!
You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!
I do not prefer others so very much before you either;
I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand;
You will come forward in due time to my side.
My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole
earth;
I have looked for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all
lands;
I think some divine rapport has equalised me with them.
13.
O vapours! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant
continents, and fallen down there, for reasons;
I think I have blown with you, O winds;
O waters, I have fingered every shore with you.
I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through;
I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the highest
embedded rocks, to cry thence.
_Salut au Monde!
_
What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities
myself;
All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.
Toward all
I raise high the perpendicular hand--I make the signal,
To remain after me in sight for ever,
For all the haunts and homes of men.
_A BROADWAY PAGEANT. _
(RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE EMBASSY, JUNE 16, 1860. )
1.
Over sea, hither from Niphon,
Courteous, the Princes of Asia, swart-cheeked princes,
First-comers, guests, two-sworded princes,
Lesson-giving princes, leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed,
impassive,
This day they ride through Manhattan.
2.
Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
In the procession, along with the Princes of Asia, the errand-bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching;
But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad.
3.
When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to its pavements;
When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love;
When the round-mouthed guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit their
salutes;
When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me--when heaven-clouds
canopy my city with a delicate thin haze;
When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves,
thicken with colours;
When every ship, richly dressed, carries her flag at the peak;
When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows;
When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers--
when the mass is densest;
When the facades of the houses are alive with people--when eyes gaze,
riveted, tens of thousands at a time;
When the guests from the islands advance--when the pageant moves forward,
visible;
When the summons is made--when the answer, that waited thousands of years,
answers;
I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd,
and gaze with them.
4.
Superb-faced Manhattan!
Comrade Americanos! --to us, then, at last, the Orient comes.
To us, my city,
Where our tall-topped marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides--to
walk in the space between,
To-day our Antipodes comes.
