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The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their
deathless attachment to freedom, their fierceness
when wronged,
The fluency of their speech, their delight in music,
their curiosity, good temper, and open-handedness
—the whole composite make,
The prevailing ardor 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, gold-digging,
Wharf-hemmed cities, railroad and steamboat lines,
intersecting all points,
Factories, mercantile life, labor-saving machinery, the
north-east, north-west, south-west,
Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantation
life,
Slavery, the tremulous spreading of hands to shelter
it—the stern opposition to it, which ceases only
when it ceases.

18. For these and the like, their own voices! For these,
space ahead!
Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive,
and ever keeps vista;
Others adorn the past—but you, O, days of the
present, I adorn you!
O days of the future, I believe in you!
O America, because you build for mankind, I build
for you!
O well-beloved stone-cutters! I lead them who plan
with decision and science,