1
OVER the western sea, hither from Niphon come, | |
| Courteous, the swart-cheek’d two-sworded envoys, | |
| Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive, | |
| Ride to-day through Manhattan. | |
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| Libertad! | 5 |
| I do not know whether others behold what I behold, | |
| In the procession, along with the nobles of Asia, the errand-bearers, | |
| Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching; | |
| But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad. | |
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2
When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to her pavements; | 10 |
| When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love; | |
| When the round-mouth’d guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit their salutes; | |
| When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me—when heaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze; | |
| When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves, thicken with colors; | |
| When every ship, richly drest, carries her flag at the peak; | 15 |
| When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows; | |
| When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers—when the mass is densest; | |
| When the façades of the houses are alive with people—when eyes gaze, riveted, tens of thousands at a time; | |
| When the guests from the islands advance—when the pageant moves forward, visible; | |
| When the summons is made—when the answer that waited thousands of years, answers; | 20 |
| I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze with them. | |
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3
Superb-faced Manhattan! | |
| Comrade Americanos!—to us, then, at last, the Orient comes. | |
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| To us, my city, | |
| Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides—to walk in the space between, | 25 |
| To-day our Antipodes comes. | |
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| The Originatress comes, | |
| The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld, | |
| Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion, | |
| Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments, | 30 |
| With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes, | |
| The race of Brahma comes! | |
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4
See, my cantabile! these, and more, are flashing to us from the procession; | |
| As it moves, changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves, changing, before us. | |
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| For not the envoys, nor the tann’d Japanee from his island only; | 35 |
| Lithe and silent, the Hindoo appears—the Asiatic continent itself appears—the Past, the dead, | |
| The murky night morning of wonder and fable, inscrutable, | |
| The envelop’d mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees, | |
| The North—the sweltering South—eastern Assyria—the Hebrews—the Ancient of Ancients, | |
| Vast desolated cities—the gliding Present—all of these, and more, are in the pageant-procession. | 40 |
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| Geography, the world, is in it; | |
| The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond; | |
| The coast you, henceforth, are facing—you Libertad! from your Western golden shores | |
| The countries there, with their populations—the millions en-masse, are curiously here; | |
| The swarming market places—the temples, with idols ranged along the sides, or at the end—bonze, brahmin, and lama; | 45 |
| The mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman; | |
| The singing-girl and the dancing-girl—the ecstatic person—the secluded Emperors, | |
| Confucius himself—the great poets and heroes—the warriors, the castes, all, | |
| Trooping up, crowding from all directions—from the Altay mountains, | |
| From Thibet—from the four winding and far-flowing rivers of China, | 50 |
| From the Southern peninsulas, and the demi-continental islands—from Malaysia; | |
| These, and whatever belongs to them, palpable, show forth to me, and are seiz’d by me, | |
| And I am seiz’d by them, and friendlily held by them, | |
| Till, as here, them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you. | |
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5
For I too, raising my voice, join the ranks of this pageant; | 55 |
| I am the chanter—I chant aloud over the pageant; | |
| I chant the world on my Western Sea; | |
| I chant, copious, the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky; | |
| I chant the new empire, grander than any before—As in a vision it comes to me; | |
| I chant America, the Mistress—I chant a greater supremacy; | 60 |
| I chant, projected, a thousand blooming cities yet, in time, on those groups of sea-islands; | |
| I chant my sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes; | |
| I chant my stars and stripes fluttering in the wind; | |
| I chant commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work—races, reborn, refresh’d; | |
| Lives, works, resumed—The object I know not—but the old, the Asiatic, renew’d, as it must be, | 65 |
| Commencing from this day, surrounded by the world. | |
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6
And you, Libertad of the world! | |
| You shall sit in the middle, well-pois’d, thousands of years; | |
| As to-day, from one side, the nobles of Asia come to you; | |
| As to-morrow, from the other side, the Queen of England sends her eldest son to you. | 70 |
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7
The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed, | |
| The ring is circled, the journey is done; | |
| The box-lid is but perceptibly open’d—nevertheless the perfume pours copiously out of the whole box. | |
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8
Young Libertad! | |
| With the venerable Asia, the all-mother, | 75 |
| Be considerate with her, now and ever, hot Libertad—for you are all; | |
| Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother, now sending messages over the archipelagoes to you; | |
| Bend your proud neck low for once, young Libertad. | |
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9
Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping? | |
| Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long? | 80 |
| Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while unknown, for you, for reasons? | |
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| They are justified—they are accomplish’d—they shall now be turn’d the other way also, to travel toward you thence; | |
| They shall now also march obediently eastward, for your sake, Libertad. | |
