TO the leaven'd soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last; <br /> (Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead, <br /> But forth from my tent emerging for good--loosing, untying the tent- <br /> ropes;) <br /> In the freshness, the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits <br /> and vistas, again to peace restored, <br /> To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas beyond--to the <br /> south and the north; <br /> To the leaven'd soil of the general western world, to attest my <br /> songs, <br /> (To the average earth, the wordless earth, witness of war and peace,) <br /> To the Alleghanian hills, and the tireless Mississippi, <br /> To the rocks I, calling, sing, and all the trees in the woods, <br /> To the plain of the poems of heroes, to the prairie spreading <br /> wide, 10 <br /> To the far-off sea, and the unseen winds, and the same impalpable <br /> air; <br /> ... And responding, they answer all, (but not in words,) <br /> The average earth, the witness of war and peace, acknowledges mutely; <br /> The prairie draws me close, as the father, to bosom broad, the son; <br /> The Northern ice and rain, that began me, nourish me to the end; <br /> But the hot sun of the South is to ripen my songs.<br /><br />Walt Whitman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-leaven-d-soil-they-trod/
