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Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind, extinct, The Crusaders' streams of shadowy midnight troops sped with the sunrise,

Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone, Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,

Palmerin, ogre, departed, vanish'd the turrets that Usk from its waters reflected,

Arthur vanish'd with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad, all gone, dissolv'd utterly like an exhalation; Pass'd! pass'd! for us, forever pass'd, that once so mighty world, now void, inanimate, phantom world,

Embroider'd, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends, myths,

Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and courtly dames,

Pass'd to its charnel vault, coffin'd with crown and armor

on,

Blazon'd with Shakspere's purple page,

And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme.

I

say I see, my friends, if you do not, the illustrious emigré, (having it is true in her day, although the same, changed, journey'd considerable,)

Making directly for this rendezvous, vigorously clearing a path for herself, striding through the confusion,

By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay'd, Bluff'd not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,

Smiling and pleas'd with palpable intent to stay,

She's here, install'd amid the kitchen ware!

And thou America,

Thy offspring towering e'er so high, yet higher Thee above all towering,

With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law; Thou Union holding all, fusing, absorbing, tolerating all, Thee, ever thee, I sing.

Thou, also thou, a World,

With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant, Rounded by thee in one-one common orbic language, One common indivisible destiny for All.

And by the spells which ye vouchsafe to those your ministers in earnest,

I here personify and call my themes, to make them pass before ye.

Behold, America! (and thou, ineffable guest and sister!) For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands; Behold! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains,

As in procession coming.

Behold, the sea itself,

And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships;

See, where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green and blue,

See, the steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port,

See, dusky and undulating, the long pennants of smoke.

Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west,

Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,

Wielding all day their axes.

Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels, thy oars

men,

How the ash writhes under those muscular arms!

There by the furnace, and there by the anvil,
Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths swing their sledges,

Overhand so steady, overhand they turn and fall with joyous clank,

Like a tumult of laughter.

Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents, Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising,

See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream.

Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,

Thy wealthy daughter-states, Eastern and Western,
The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri,
Georgia, Texas, and the rest,

Thy limitless crops, grass, wheat, sugar, oil, corn, rice, hemp, hops,

Thy barns all fill'd, the endless freight-train and the bulging storehouse,

The grapes that ripen on thy vines, the apples in thy orchards,

Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes, thy coal, thy gold and silver,

The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.

All thine O sacred Union!

Ships, farms, shops, barns, factories, mines,

City and State, North, South, item and aggregate,
We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee!

Protectress absolute, thou! bulwark of all!

For well we know that while thou givest each and all, (generous as God,)

Without thee neither all nor each, nor land, home,

Nor ship, nor mine, nor any here this day secure,
Nor aught, nor any day secure.

And thou, the Emblem waving over all!

Delicate beauty, a word to thee, (it may be salutary,) Remember thou hast not always been as here to-day so comfortably ensovereign'd,

In other scenes than these have I observ'd thee flag, Not quite so trim and whole and freshly blooming in folds of stainless silk,

But I have seen thee bunting, to tatters torn upon thy splinter'd staff,

Or clutch'd to some young color-bearer's breast with desperate hands,

Savagely struggled for, for life or death, fought over long, 'Mid cannons' thunder-crash and many a curse and groan and yell, and rifle-volleys cracking sharp,

And moving masses as wild demons surging, and lives as nothing risk'd,

For thy mere remnant grimed with dirt and smoke and sopp'd in blood,

For sake of that, my beauty, and that thou might'st dally as now secure up there,

Many a good man have I seen go under.

Now here and these and hence in peace, all thine O Flag! And here and hence for thee, O universal Muse! and thou for them!

And here and hence O Union, all the work and workmen thine!

None separate from thee- henceforth One only, we and thou,

(For the blood of the children, what is it, only the blood maternal?

And lives and works, what are they all at last, except the roads to faith and death?)

While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother,

We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in thee; Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual!

Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in thee! cities and States in thee!

Our freedom all in thee! our very lives in thee!

A SONG FOR OCCUPATIONS

The sun and stars that float in the open air,

The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them is something grand,

I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness,

And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation or bon-mot or reconnoissance,

And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without luck must be a failure for us, And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.

The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things,

The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows,

The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the wonders that fill each minute of time forever, What have you reckon'd them for, camerado?

Have you reckon'd them for your trade or farm-work? or for the profits of your store?

Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure, or a lady's leisure?

Have you reckon'd that the landscape took substance and form that it might be painted in a picture?

Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung?

Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmonious combinations and the fluids of the air, as subjects for the savans?

Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts? Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names?

Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or agriculture itself?

Old institutions, these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and the practice handed along in manufactures, will we rate them so high?

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