I stood very near you old man when cool and indifferent,
     but trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds, you
     mounted the scaffold;)
I would sing in my copious song your census returns of the
     States,
The tables of population and products, I would sing of your
     ships and their cargoes,
The proud black ships of Manhattan arriving, some fill'd with
     immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold,
Songs thereof would I sing, to all that hitherward comes
     would I welcome give,
And you would I sing, fair stripling! welcome to you from me,
     young prince of England!
(Remember you surging Manhattan's crowds as you pass'd
     with your cortege of nobles?
There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with attachment;)
Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up
     my bay,
Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my
     bay, she was 600 feet long,
Her moving swiftly surrounded by myriads of small craft I
     forget not to sing;
Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north
     flaring in heaven,
Nor the strange huge meteor-procession dazzling and
     clear shooting over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long it sail'd its balls of unearthly
     light over our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
Of such, and fitful as they, I sing — with gleams
     from them would I gleam and patch these chants,
Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good
     — year of forebodings!
Year of comets and meteors transient and strange
     — lo! even here one equally transient and
     strange!
As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone,
     what is this chant,
What am I myself but one of your meteors?

(1860?) 1881

WITH ANTECEDENTS

WITH antecedents,
With my fathers and mothers and the accumulations of past
     ages,
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as
     I am,
With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome,
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb and the Saxon,
With antique maritime ventures, laws, artisanship, wars and
     journeys,
With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle,
With the sale of slaves, with enthusiasts, with the troubadour,
     the crusader, and the monk,
With those old continents whence we have come to this new
     continent,
With the fading kingdoms and kings over there,
With the fading religions and priests,
With the small shores we look back to from our own large and
     present shores,
With countless years drawing themselves onward and arrived
     at these years,
You and me arrived — America arrived and making
     this year,
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.

O but it is not the years — it is I, it is You,
We touch all laws and tally all antecedents,
We are the skald, the oracle, the monk and the knight, we
     easily include them and more,
We stand amid time beginningless and endless, we stand
     amid evil and good,
All swings around us, there is as much darkness as light,
The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around
     us,
Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.
As for me, (torn, stormy, amid these vehement days,)
I have the idea of all, and am all and believe in all,

I believe materialism is true and spiritualism is true, I
     reject no part.
(Have I forgotten any part? any thing in the past?
Come to me whoever and whatever, till I give you
     recognition.)
I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews,
I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god,
I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true,
     without exception,
I assert that all past days were what they must have been,
And that they could no-how have been better than they
     were,
And that to-day is what it must be, and that America is,
And that to-day and America could no-how be better than
     they are.

In the name of these States and in your and my name, the
     Past,
And in the name of these States and in your and my name,
     the Present time.
I know that the past was great and the future will be great,
And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,
(For the sake of him I typify, for the common average man's
     sake, your sake if you are he,)
And that where I am or you are this present day, there is
     the centre of all days, all races,
And there is the meaning to us of all that has ever come of
     races and days, or ever will come.

1860 1881