Leaves of Grass (1882)/By the Roadside/To a President

by Walt Whitman

TO A PRESIDENT.

All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn'd of Nature—of the politics of Nature you have not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality,
You have not seen that only such as they are for these States,
And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off from these States.