C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Seer

By John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)

I HEAR the far-off voyager’s horn,

I see the Yankee’s trail;

His foot on every mountain pass,

On every stream his sail.

He’s whittling round St. Mary’s Falls,

Upon his loaded wain;

He’s leaving on the pictured rocks

His fresh tobacco stain.

I hear the mattock in the mine,

The axe-stroke in the dell,

The clamor from the Indian lodge,

The Jesuit’s chapel bell.

I see the swarthy trappers come

From Mississippi’s springs;

The war-chiefs with their painted bows,

And crest of eagle wings.

Behind the scared squaw’s birch canoe

The steamer smokes and raves;

And city lots are staked for sale

Above old Indian graves.

By forest, lake, and waterfall,

I see the peddler’s show,—

The mighty mingling with the mean,

The lofty with the low.

I hear the tread of pioneers

Of nations yet to be;

The first low wash of waves that soon

Shall roll a human sea.

The rudiments of empire here

Are plastic yet and warm;

The chaos of a mighty world

Is rounding into form.

Each rude and jostling fragment soon

Its fitting place shall find—

The raw material of a State,

Its music and its mind.

And, westering still, the star which leads

The New World in its train,

Has tipped with fire the icy spears

Of many a mountain chain.

The snowy cones of Oregon

Are kindled on its way;

And California’s golden sands

Gleam brighter in its ray.

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