AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace, <br /> (For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein, O terrific <br /> Ideal! <br /> Against vast odds, having gloriously won, <br /> Now thou stridest on--yet perhaps in time toward denser wars, <br /> Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers, <br /> Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others; <br /> --As I walk solitary, unattended, <br /> Around me I hear that eclat of the world--politics, produce, <br /> The announcements of recognized things--science, <br /> The approved growth of cities, and the spread of inventions. 10 <br /> <br /> I see the ships, (they will last a few years,) <br /> The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen, <br /> And here the indorsement of all, and do not object to it. <br /> <br /> But I too announce solid things; <br /> Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing--I watch <br /> them, <br /> Like a grand procession, to music of distant bugles, pouring, <br /> triumphantly moving--and grander heaving in sight; <br /> They stand for realities--all is as it should be. <br /> <br /> Then my realities; <br /> What else is so real as mine? <br /> Libertad, and the divine average--Freedom to every slave on the face <br /> of the earth, 20 <br /> The rapt promises and luminé of seers--the spiritual world--these <br /> centuries lasting songs, <br /> And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements <br /> of any. <br /> <br /> For we support all, fuse all, <br /> After the rest is done and gone, we remain; <br /> There is no final reliance but upon us; <br /> Democracy rests finally upon us (I, my brethren, begin it,) <br /> And our visions sweep through eternity.<br /><br />Walt Whitman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-i-walk-these-broad-majestic-days/
