1
WITH antecedents; | |
| With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages; | |
| With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am: | |
| With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome; | |
| With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon; | 5 |
| With antique maritime ventures,—with laws, artizanship, wars and journeys; | |
| With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle; | |
| With the sale of slaves—with enthusiasts—with the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk; | |
| With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent; | |
| With the fading kingdoms and kings over there; | 10 |
| With the fading religions and priests; | |
| With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores; | |
| With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years; | |
| You and Me arrived—America arrived, and making this year; | |
| This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come. | 15 |
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2
O but it is not the years—it is I—it is You; | |
| We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents; | |
| We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knight—we easily include them, and more; | |
| We stand amid time, beginningless and endless—we stand amid evil and good; | |
| All swings around us—there is as much darkness as light; | 20 |
| The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us; | |
| Its sun, and its again, all swing around us. | |
| As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days,) | |
| I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all; | |
| I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true—I reject no part. | 25 |
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| Have I forgotten any part? | |
| Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition. | |
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| I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews; | |
| I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god; | |
| I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception; | 30 |
| I assert that all past days were what they should have been; | |
| And that they could no-how have been better than they were, | |
| And that to-day is what it should be—and that America is, | |
| And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are. | |
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3
In the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Past, | 35 |
| And in the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Present time. | |
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| I know that the past was great, and the future will be great, | |
| And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time, | |
| (For the sake of him I typify—for the common average man’s sake—your sake, if you are he;) | |
| And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of all days, all races, | 40 |
| And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and days, or ever will come. | |
