creeds,
     arts, statutes, literatures,
Here build your homes for good, establish here, these areas
     entire, lands of the Western shore,
We pledge, we dedicate to you.

For man of you, your characteristic race,
Here may he hardy, sweet, gigantic grow, here tower
     proportionate to Nature,
Here climb the vast pure spaces unconfined, uncheck'd by
     wall or roof,
Here laugh with storm or sun, here joy, here patiently inure,
Here heed himself, unfold himself, (not others' formulas
     heed,) here fill his time,
To duly fall, to aid, unreck'd at last,
To disappear, to serve.

Thus on the northern coast,
In the echo of teamsters' calls and the clinking chains, and
     the music of choppers' axes,

The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek,
     the groan,
Such words combined from the redwood-tree, as of voices
     ecstatic, ancient and rustling,
The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,
All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,
From the Cascade range to the Wasatch, or Idaho far, or
     Utah,
To the deities of the modern henceforth yielding,
The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity,
     the settlements, features all,
In the Mendocino woods I caught.

The flashing and golden pageant of California,
The sudden and gorgeous drama, the sunny and ample lands,
The long and varied stretch from Puget sound to Colorado
     south,
Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air, valleys and
     mountain cliffs,
The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow, the silent,
     cyclic chemistry,
The slow and steady ages plodding, the unoccupied surface
     ripening, the rich ores forming beneath;
At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,
A swarming and busy race settling and organizing everywhere,
Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out
     to the whole world,
To India and China and Australia and the thousand island
     paradises of the Pacific,
Populous cities, the latest inventions, the steamers on the
     rivers, the railroads, with many a thrifty farm, with machinery,
And wood and wheat and the grape, and diggings of yellow gold.

But more in you than these, lands of the Western shore,
(These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,)

I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of
     years, till now deferr'd,
Promis'd to be fulfill'd, our common kind, the race.

The new society at last, proportionate to Nature,
In man of you, more than your mountain peaks or stalwart
     trees imperial,
In woman more, far more, than all your gold or vines, or
     even vital air.

Fresh come, to a new world indeed, yet long prepared,
I see the genius of the modern, child of the real and ideal,
Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America,
     heir of the past so grand,
To build a grander future.

1874 1881