stripes!
Ample Ohio's, Kanada's bards--bards of California! inland bards--bards
of the war!
You by my charm I invoke.

EPILOGUE

RISE O DAYS FROM YOUR FATHOMLESS DEEPS

RISE O DAYS FROM YOUR FATHOMLESS DEEPS

1

Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer
sweep,
Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour'd what the earth gave me,
Long I roam'd the woods of the north, long I watch'd Niagara pouring,
I travel'd the prairies over and slept on their breast, I cross'd the
Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea,
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves,
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over.
I heard the wind piping; I saw the black clouds,
Saw from below what arose and mounted (O superb! O wild as my heart,
and powerful!),
Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow'd after the lightning,
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning as sudden and fast
amid the din they chased each other across the sky;
These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet pensive
and masterful,
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me,
Yet there with my soul I fed, I fed content, supercilious.

2

'Twas well, O soul--'twas a good preparation you gave me,
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill,
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us,
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities,
Something for us is pouring now more than Niagara pouring,
Torrents of men (sources and rills of the Northwest are you indeed
inexhaustible?),
What, to pavements and homesteads here, what were those storms of the
mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day? was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage,
Manhattan rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati, Chicago,
unchain'd;
What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here,
How it climbs with daring feet and hands--how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows