O you States! Cities! defiant of all outside authority! I spring at once into your arms! you I most love!

O you grand Presidentiads! I wait for you!

New history! New heroes! I project you!

Visions of poets! only you really last! O sweep on! sweep on!

O Death! O you striding there! O I cannot yet!

O heights! O infinitely too swift and dizzy yet!

O purged lumine! you threaten me more than I can stand!

O present! I return while yet I may to you!

O poets to come, I depend upon you!

⁠1. A NATION announcing itself, (many in one,)

I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,

I reject none, accept all, reproduce all in my own forms.

⁠2. A breed whose testimony is behavior,

What we are WE ARE—nativity is answer enough to objections;

We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,