O voices of greater orators! I pause—I listen for
you!
O you States! Cities! defiant of all outside authority!
I spring at once into your arms! you I most
love!
O you grand Presidentiads! I wait for you!
New history! New heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! O sweep on!
sweep on!
O Death! O you striding there! O I cannot yet!
O heights! O infinitely too swift and dizzy yet!
O purged lumine! you threaten me more than I can
stand!
O present! I return while yet I may to you!
O poets to come, I depend upon you!
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1.
1.A nation announcing itself, (many in one,)
I myself make the only growth by which I can be
appreciated,
I reject none, accept all, reproduce all in my own
forms.
2. A breed whose testimony is behavior,
What we are We Are—nativity is answer enough
to objections;
We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,
