To you of New England,

To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania,

To the Kanadian of the north — to the Southerner I love,

These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself — the germs are in all men ;

I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb friendship, exalte, previously unknown,

Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.

Earth ! my likeness !

Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there,

I now suspect that is not all ;

I now suspect there is something fierce in you, eligible to burst forth ;

For an athlete is enamoured of me — and I of him.

But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me, eligible to burst forth,

I dare not tell it in words — not even in these songs.