As a strong bird, on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think to-day of thee, America,
Such be the recitative I'd bring to-day for thee.

The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee
not,

Nor the compliments that have served their turn so
long,

Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of foreign
court, or indoor library;

But an odor I'd bring to-day as from forests of
pine in the north, in Maine—or breath of an Illi-
nois prairie,

With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia, or Tennessee
—or from Texas uplands, or Florida's glades,

With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes, or Yo-
semite;

And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the
rustling sea-sound,

That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the
world.

And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union!

Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee—mind-formulas fitted for thee—real, and sane, and large as these and thee;

Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew
—thou transcendental Union!

By thy Fact to be justified—blended with Thought;

Thought of Man justified—blended with God:

Through thy Idea—lo! the immortal Reality!

Through thy Reality—lo! the immortal Idea!

a line of 5 or 6 stars nonpareil

Brain of the New World! what a task is thine!

To formulate the Modern.... Out of the peerless
grandeur of the modern,

Out of Thyself—comprising Science—to recast
Poems, Churches, Art,

(Recast—may-be discard them, end them—May-be
their work is done—who knows?)

By vision, hand, conception, on the background of
the mighty past, the dead,

To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present.

7

By history's cycles forwarded—by every nation, language, hither sent,
Ready, collected here—a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here,
(The true New World—the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures to come,)
Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform'd—neither do I define thee;
How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?
I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good;
I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past;
I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe;
But I do not undertake to define thee—hardly to comprehend thee;
I but thee name—thee prophecy—as now!
I merely thee ejaculate!

#

With the above partial extracts, we must close our notice of this poem. It is being published in small book form in New York, with other pieces, under its name, "As a Strong Bird on Pinions free." By the way, we see that Whitman has largely infused the scenery of Virginia in his later poems, as get rid of the local and emotional inspiration from the Potomac river.