| O MATER! O fils! | |
| O brood continental! | |
| O flowers of the prairies! | |
| O space boundless! O hum of mighty products! | |
| O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent, proud! | 5 |
| O race of the future! O women! | |
| O fathers! O you men of passion and the storm! | |
| O native power only! O beauty! | |
| O yourself! O God! O divine average! | |
| O you bearded roughs! O bards! O all those slumberers! | 10 |
| O arouse! the dawn bird’s throat sounds shrill! Do you not hear the cock crowing? | |
| O, as I walk’d the beach, I heard the mournful notes foreboding a tempest—the low, oft-repeated shriek of the diver, the long-lived loon; | |
| O I heard, and yet hear, angry thunder;—O you sailors! O ships! make quick preparation! | |
| O from his masterful sweep, the warning cry of the eagle! | |
| (Give way there, all! It is useless! Give up your spoils;) | 15 |
| O sarcasms! Propositions! (O if the whole world should prove indeed a sham, a sell!) | |
| O I believe there is nothing real but America and freedom! | |
| O to sternly reject all except Democracy! | |
| O imperator! O who dare confront you and me? | |
| O to promulgate our own! O to build for that which builds for mankind! | 20 |
| O feuillage! O North! O the slope drained by the Mexican sea! | |
| O all, all inseparable—ages, ages, ages! | |
| O a curse on him that would dissever this Union for any reason whatever! | |
| O climates, labors! O good and evil! O death! | |
| O you strong with iron and wood! O Personality! | 25 |
| O the village or place which has the greatest man or woman! even if it be only a few ragged huts; | |
| O the city where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men; | |
| O a wan and terrible emblem, by me adopted! | |
| O shapes arising! shapes of the future centuries! | |
| O muscle and pluck forever for me! | 30 |
| O workmen and workwomen forever for me! | |
| O farmers and sailors! O drivers of horses forever for me! | |
| O I will make the new bardic list of trades and tools! | |
| O you coarse and wilful! I love you! | |
| O South! O longings for my dear home! O soft and sunny airs! | 35 |
| O pensive! O I must return where the palm grows and the mocking-bird sings, or else I die! | |
| O equality! O organic compacts! I am come to be your born poet! | |
| O whirl, contest, sounding and resounding! I am your poet, because I am part of you; | |
| O days by-gone! Enthusiasts! Antecedents! | |
| O vast preparations for These States! O years! | 40 |
| O what is now being sent forward thousands of years to come! | |
| O mediums! O to teach! to convey the invisible faith! | |
| To promulge real things! to journey through all The States! | |
| O creation! O to-day! O laws! O unmitigated adoration! | |
| O for mightier broods of orators, artists, and singers! | 45 |
| O for native songs! carpenter’s, boatman’s, ploughman’s songs! shoemaker’s songs! | |
| O haughtiest growth of time! O free and extatic! | |
| O what I, here, preparing, warble for! | |
| O you hastening light! O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you too will ascend; | |
| O so amazing and so broad! up there resplendent, darting and burning; | 50 |
| O prophetic! O vision staggered with weight of light! with pouring glories! | |
| O copious! O hitherto unequalled! | |
| O Libertad! O compact! O union impossible to dissever! | |
| O my Soul! O lips becoming tremulous, powerless! | |
| O centuries, centuries yet ahead! | 55 |
| O voices of greater orators! I pause—I listen for you | |
| 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! | 60 |
| 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! | 65 |
