Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/28

58. No dainty dolce affettuoso I;
Bearded, sunburnt, gray-necked, forbidding, I have
arrived,
To be wrestled with as I pass, for the solid prizes
of the universe,
For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.

59. On my way a moment I pause,
Here for you! And here for America!
Still the Present I raise aloft—Still the Future of
The States I harbinge, glad and sublime,
And for the Past I pronounce what the air holds of
the red aborigines.

60. The red aborigines!
Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds,
calls as of birds and animals in the woods,
syllabled to us for names,
Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez,
Chattahoochee, Kaqueta, Oronoco.
Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-
Walla,
Leaving such to The States, they melt, they depart,
charging the water and the land with names.

61. O expanding and swift! O henceforth,
Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick, and
audacious,
A world primal again—Vistas of glory, incessant
and branching,
A new race, dominating previous ones, and grander
far,
New politics—New literatures and religions—New
inventions and arts.