 Book 13 of Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by phone. Song of the Exposition 1. Ah, little Rex the laborer, how near his work is holding him to God, the loving laborer through space and time. After all, not to create only or found only, but to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded, to give it our own identity, average, limitless, free. To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital religious fire, not to repel or destroy so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate. To obey as well as command, to follow more than to lead. These also are the lessons of our new world, while how little the new after all, how much the old, old world. Long and long has the grass been growing, long and long has the rain been falling, long has the globe been rolling round. 2. Come, muse migrate from grace and Ionia, cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts, that matter of Troy and Achilles Ross and Aeneas's Odysseus's wanderings. Playcard removed and to let on the rocks of your snowy pernasses. Repeat at Jerusalem. Place the notice high on Jaffas Gate and on Mount Moria. The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles and Italian collections. For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide untried domain awaits, demands you. 3. Responsive to our summons or rather to her long nursed inclination joined with an irresistible natural gravitation. She comes. I hear the rustling of her gown. I sent the odour of her breath's delicious fragrance. I mark her step divine, her curious eyes a-turning, rolling upon this very scene. The dame of dames. Can I believe, then, those ancient temples, sculptures classic, could none of them retain her? Nor shades of Virgil and Dante, nor myriad memories, poems, old associations, magnetise and hold on to her. But that she's left them all and here. Yes, if you will allow me to say so. I, my friends, if you do not, complainly see her. The same undying soul of earths, activities, beauties, heroism's expression. Out from her evolutions hither come, and the distrata of her former themes, hidden and covered by today's, foundation of today's, ended the seized through-time, her voice by Castile's fountain. Silent, the broken-lipped Sphinx in Egypt. Silent, all those century-buffling tombs. Ended for I, the epics of Asia's, Europe's, helmeted warriors. Ended the primitive call of the Muses. Calliope's call forever closed. Calliope, Malpomani, Thalaia dead. Ended the stately rithmas of Yuna and Oriana. Ended the quest of the Holy Grail. Jerusalem, a handful of ashes blown by the wind, extinct. The crusader's streams of shadowy midnight troops spent with the sunrise. Amades, Tancred, utterly gone. Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver, gone. Palmyrin, Ogre, departant, vanished the turrets that usk from its waters reflected. Arthur, vanished with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and Galahand, all gone, dissolved utterly like an exhalation. Past, past, for us, forever past, that once so mighty world, now void inanimate phantom world, embroidered, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends, myths, its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and courtly dames. Past, to its charnel vault, coffined with crown and armour on, blazoned with Shakespeare's purple page and dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme. I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the illustrious emigre. Having it is true in her day, although the same changed journey to considerable. Making directly for this rendezvous, vigorously clearing a path for herself, striding through the confusion. By thud of machinery and shrill steam whistle undismayed, bluffed not a bit by drainpipe gasometers, artificial fertilisers, smiling and pleased with palpable intent to stay. She's here, installed amid the kitchenware. Four. But hold, don't I forget my manners? To introduce the stranger. What else indeed do I live to chant for? To thee, Columbia. In liberty's name, welcome immortal. Class pans, and ever henceforth, sister steer be both. Fear not, O muse, truly new ways and days receive surround you. I candidly confess a queer, queer race of novel fashion, and yet the same old human race, the same within, without. Faces and hearts the same, feelings the same, yearnings the same, the same old love, beauty and use the same. Five. We do not blame thee, elder world, nor really separate ourselves from thee. Would the son separate himself from the father? Looking back on thee, seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through past ages bending, building, we build to ours today. Mightier than Egypt's tombs, fairer than Grisha's Romas temples, prouder than Milan's statutes spired cathedral, more picturesque than rainish costal keeps. We plan even now to raise, beyond them all, thy great cathedral, sacred industry, no tomb, a keep for life, for practical invention. As an awaking vision, in while I chant, I see it rise, I scan and prophecy, outside and in, its manifold ensemble. Around a palace, loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet, Earth's modern wonder, history seven, outstripping. High rising, tear on tear, with glass and iron facades, gladdening the sun and sky, and hewed in cheerfulest hues, Drones, lilac, robin's egg, marine and crimson, over whose golden roof shall flaunt beneath thy banner freedom, the banners of the states and flags of every land. A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser palaces shall cluster, somewhere within their walls shall all that forward's perfect human life be started. Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited. Not only all the world of works, trade, products, but all the workmen of the world here to be represented. Here shall you trace in flowing operation, in every state of practical, busy movement, the rills of civilization. Materials here, under your eye, shall change their shape as if by magic. The cotton shall be picked almost in the very field, shall be dried, cleaned, ginned, bailed, spun into thread and cloth before you. You shall see hands at work, at all the old processes, and all the new ones. You shall see the various grains and how flour is made, and then bread baked by the bakers. You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and on till they become bullion. You shall watch how the printer sets type and learn what a composing stick is. You shall mark in amazement the hoe-press whirling its cylinders, shedding the printed leaves steady and fast. The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail shall be created before you. In large calm halls, a stately museum shall teach you the infinite lessons of minerals. In another, woods, plants, vegetation shall be illustrated. In another, animals, animal life and development. One stately house shall be the music house. Others for other arts, learning, the sciences shall all be here. None shall be slighted. None that shall be here, honored, helped, example. Six. This, this and these, America, shall be your pyramids and oglesks, your Alexandrian pharaohs, gardens of Babylon, your temple at Olympia. The male and female, many laboring not, shall ever hear confront the laboring many, with precious benefits to both, glory to all, to thee, America and thee, eternal muse. And here shall ye inhabit powerful matrons, in your vast state, faster than all the old, echoed through long, long centuries to come, to sound of different, prouder songs with stronger themes, practical, peaceful life, the people's life, the people themselves, lifted, illumined, bathed in peace, elate, secure in peace. Seven. Away with themes of war, away with war itself. Hence, for my shuddering sight, to never more return that show of blackened, mutilated corpses, that hell unpent and raid of blood, fit for wild tigers or for loctongued wolves, not reasoning men, and in its stead, speed industries campaigns, with thy undaunted armies, engineering thy penance labour, loosened to debris, thy bugles sounding loud and clear. Away with old romance, away with novels, plots and plays of foreign courts, away with love verses, sugared in rhyme, the intrigues, amours of idlers, fitted for only banquets of the night, where dancers to late music slide, the unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few, with perfumes, heat and wine beneath the dazzling chandeliers. To you, ye reverent saint sisters, I raise a voice for far-superbore themes, for poets and for art, to exalt the present and the real, to teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade, to sing in songs how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled, to manual work for each and all, to plow, hoe, dig, to plant and tend to tree, the berry, vegetables, flowers, for every man to see to it that he really do something, for every woman too, to use the hammer and the soul, rip or cross cut, to cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting, to work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter, to invent a little, something ingenious, to aid the washing, cooking, cleaning, and hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves. I say I bring thee muse today and here, all occupations, duties broad and close, toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless without cessation, the old, old practical burdens, interests, joys, the family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife, the house comforts, the house itself and all its belongings, food and its preservation, chemistry apply to it, whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded man or woman, the perfect long-jev personality, and helps its present life to health and happiness and shapes its soul for the eternal real life to come. With latest connections works the inter-transportation of the world, steam power, the great express lines, gas, petroleum, these triumphs of our time, the Atlantic's delicate cable, the Pacific Railroad, the Suez Canal, the Monsonny's and Gothard and Housack tunnels, the Brooklyn Bridge, this earth all spanned with iron rails, with lines of steamships threading in every sea, our own ronder, the current globe I bring, eight. And thou, America, thy offspring towering air so high, yet higher thee above all towering, with victory on thy left and that I right hand law, thou union holding all, fusing, absorbing, tolerating all, thee, ever thee, I sing. Thou, also thou, a world with all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant, rounded by thee in one, one common orbit language, one common indivisible destiny for all. And by the spells which ye vouchsafe to those your ministers in earnest, I hear personify and call my themes to make them pass before ye. Behold, America, and thou ineffable guest and sister, for thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands. Behold, thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains, as in procession coming. Behold, the sea itself, and on its limitless heaving breast, the ships, sea where their white sails, belling in the wind, speckled a green and blue, sea the steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port, sea dusky and undulating the long penance of smoke. Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west, or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axmen wielding all day their axes. Behold, on the lakes thy pilots at their wheels, thy oarsmen, how the ash rides under those muscular arms. There by the furnace and there by the anvil, behold thy sturdy blacksmiths swinging their sledges, overhand so steady, overhand they turn and fall with joyous clank, like a tumult of laughter. Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patterns, thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising, see from their chimneys how the tall flame fires stream. Mark thy interminable farms, north, south, thy wealthy daughter states, eastern and western, the varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Texas and the rest, thy limitless crops, grass, wheat, sugar, oil, corn, rice, hemp, hops, thy barns all filled, the endless freight train and the bulging storehouse, the grapes that ripen on thy vines, the apples in thy orchards, thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes, thy coal, thy gold and silver, the inexhaustible iron in thy mines. All thine, O sacred union, ships, farms, shops, barns, factories, mines, city and state, north, south, item and aggregate, we dedicate, dread mother, all to thee, protectress absolute thou, bulwark of all, for well we know that while thou givest each and all, generous as God, without thee, neither all, nor each, nor land, home, nor ship, nor mine, nor any hear this day secure, nor ought, nor any day secure. Nine. And thou, the emblem waving over all, delicate beauty, a word to thee, it may be solitary. Remember, thou hast not always been, as here to-day, so comfortably and sovereign, in other scenes than these, have I observed thee flag, not quite so trim and whole and freshly blooming in folds of stainless silk, but I have seen debunting, to tatters torn, upon thy splintered staff, or clutched to some young colour-bearers breast with desperate hands, savagely struggled for, for life or death, thought over long, met cannon's thunder-crash, and many a curse, and groan and yell, and rifle-vollies cracking sharp, and moving masses as wild demons surging, and lives as nothing risked, for thy mere remnant grind with dirt, and smoke, and sob-tin blood. For sake of that, my beauty, and that thou might stally, as now secure up there, many a good man, have I seen go under. Now here and these, and hence in peace, all thine, oh flag, and here and hence for thee, oh universal muse, and thou for them, and here and hence, oh union, all the work and workmen dying, none separate from thee, henceforth one only, we and thou. For the blood of the children, what is it, only the blood maternal, and lives and works, what are they all at last, except the roads to faith and death? While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear mother, we own it all, and several today in the soluble in thee. Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre, it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual, our farms, inventions, crops, we own in thee, cities and states in thee, our freedom all in thee, our very lives in thee. End of book 13, recording by Farm. Book 14 of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This Liberwoks recording is in the public domain. Recording by Farm. Song of the redwood tree. One. A California song, a prophecy and indirection, a thought impalpable to breathe as air, a chorus of dryets, fading, departing, or hemorrhoids departing, a murmuring, fateful, giant voice out of the earth and sky, voice of a mighty dying tree in the redwood forest dense. Farewell, my brethren, farewell, oh earth and sky, farewell, ye neighboring waters, my time has ended, my term has come. Along the northern coast, just back from the rockbound shore and the caves, in the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country, with the surge for bass and accompaniment, low and hoarse, with crackling blows of axes, sounding musically driven by strong arms, driven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes, there in the redwood forest dense, I heard the mighty tree its death-champed chanting. The chopper's heard not, the camp shanties echoed not, the quick-eared teamsters and chain and jackscrew men heard not, as the wood spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years to join the refrain, but in my soul I plainly heard, murmuring out of its myriad leaves, down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high, out of its stalwart trunk and limbs, out of its foot-thick bark, that chant of the seasons and time, chant not of the past only, but the future. You untold life of me, and all you venerable and innocent joys, perennial hardy life of me, with joys mid-rain and many a summer sun, and the white snows and night and the wild winds. Oh, the great patient, rugged joys, my soul's strong joys, unwrecked by man. For now I bear the soul befitting me, I too have consciousness. Identity, and all the rocks and mountains have, and all the earth. Joyce of the life befitting me and brother's mind, our time, our term has come. Nor yield we mournfully majestic brothers, we who have grandly filled our town, with nature's calm content, with tacit huge delight, we welcome what we wrought for through the past, and leave the field for them. For them, predicted long, for a superb race, they too, too grandly fill their time. For them we abdicate, in them ourselves ye forest kings, in them these skies and airs, these mountain peaks, shasta, nevadas, these huge precipitous cliffs, this amplitude, these valleys, far yosemite, to be in them absorbed assimilated. Then to a loftier strain, still prouder, more ecstatic rose the chant, as if the airs, the deities of the west, joining with master tongue bore part. Not one from Asia's fetishes, nor red from Europe's old dynastic slaughterhouse, area of murder plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and scaffolds everywhere, but come from nature's long and harmless throats, peacefully buildeth thence, these virgin lands, lands of the western shore, to the new culminating man, to you, the empire new, you promised long, we pledge, we dedicate, you occult deep volitions, you average spiritual manhood, purpose of all, poised on yourself, giving not taking law, you womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and love and order comes from life and love, you unseen moral essence of all the vast materials of America, age upon age, working in death the same as life, you that sometimes known, often are unknown, really shape and mould the new world, adjusting it to time and space, you hidden national will, lying in your abyss, concealed but ever alert, you past and present purposes, tenaciously pursued, may be unconscious of yourselves, unswerved by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface, you vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts, statutes, literatures, here build your homes for good, establish here these areas entire, lands of the western shore, we pledge we dedicate to you, for man of you, your characteristic race, here may he hardy, sweet, gigantic, grow, here tower proportionate to nature, here climb the vast pure spaces unconfined, unchecked by wall or roof, here laugh at storm or sun, here joy, here patiently in earth, here heat himself and fold himself, not others, formulas he eat, here fill his time, to duly fall, to aid, unwrecked at last, to disappear, to serve, thus on the northern coast, in the echo of teams or scones, and the clinking chains, and the music of chopper's accents, the falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the groan, such words combined from the redwood tree, as of voices ecstatic, ancient and rustling, the century lasting, unseen drives, singing, withdrawing, all their recesses of forests and mountains leaving, from the cascade range to the Vassach, or Idaho Far, or Utah, to the deities of the modern, henceforth yielding, the chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity, the settlements features all, in the Mendocino words I caught, too, the flashing and golden pageant of California, the sudden and gorgeous drama, the sunny and ample lungs, the long and varied stretch, from Puget Sound to Colorado South, lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air, valleys and mountain cliffs, the fields of nature long prepared and fallow, the silent, cyclic chemistry, the slow and steady ages plodding, the unoccupied surface ripening, the rich oars forming beneath, at last the new arriving, assuming, taking possession, a swarming and busy race settling and organizing everywhere, ships coming in from the whole round world and going out to the whole world, to India and China and Australia and the thousand island paradises of the Pacific, popular cities, the latest inventions, the steamers on the rivers, the railroads, with many a thrifty farm, with machinery and wool and wheat and the grape, and diggings of yellow gold. Three. But more in you than these land of the western shore, these but the means, the implements, the standing ground. I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years, till now deferred, promised to be fulfilled, our common kind, the race, the new society at last proportionate to nature, in man of you, more than your mountain peaks or stalwart trees imperial, in woman more, far more than all your gold or vines or even vital air. Fresh come to a new world indeed, yet long prepared. I see the genius of the modern, child of the real and ideal, clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, air of the past so grand to build a grander future. End of book 14, recording by phone. Book 15 of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This Liberfox recording is in the public domain, recording by phone. A Song for Occupations. One. A Song for Occupations. In the labour of engines and trades and the labour of fields, I find the developments and find the eternal meanings. Work men and work women. Were all education's practical and ornamental well displayed out of me, what would it amount to? Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman, what would it amount to? Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you? Would that satisfy you? The learned, virtuous, benevolent and the usual terms, a man like me and never the usual terms. Neither a servant nor a master I. I take no sooner a large price than a small price. I will have my own whoever enjoys me. I will be even with you and you shall be even with me. If you stand at work in a shop, I stand as nigh as the nighest in the same shop. If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend, I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend. If your lover, husband, wife is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome. If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake. If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I cannot remember my own foolish and outlawed deeds? If you carouse at the table, I carouse at the opposite side of the table. If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why, I often meet strangers in the street and love them. Why, what have you thought of yourself? Is it you then that thought yourself less? Is it you that thought the president greater than you? Or the rich better off than you? Or the educated wiser than you? Because you are greasy or pimpled or where one's drunk or a thief, or that you are diseased or rheumatic or prostitute or from frivolity or impotence or that you are no scholar and never saw your name in print. Do you give in that you are any less immortal? Too. Souls of men and women, it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable and untouching. It is not you I go argue pro and con about and to settle whether you are alive or no. I own publicly who you are if nobody else owns. Grown, half-grown and vague of this country and every country, indoors and outdoors, one just as much as the other, I see and all else behind or through them. The wife and she is not one job less than the husband, the daughter and she is just as good as the son. The mother and she is every bit as much as the father. Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades, young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms, sailor men, merchant men, coasters, immigrants. All these I see, but nyer and farther the same I see. None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escape me. I bring what you much need yet always have, not money, amours, dress, eating, erudition, but as good. I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the value itself. There is something that comes to one now and perpetually. It is not what is printed, preached, discussed. It eludes discussion and print. It is not to be put in a book. It is not in this book. It is for you, whoever you are. It is no farther from you than your hearing and sight or from you. It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest and it is ever provoked by them. You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it. You may read the President's message and read nothing about it there. Nothing in the reports from the State Department or Treasury Department or in the daily papers or weekly papers or in the census or revenue returns, prices current or any accounts of stock. Three. The sun and stars that float in the open air, the apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them is something grand. I do not know what it is except that it is grand and that it is happiness and that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation or bon mot or reconnaissance and that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us and without luck must be a failure for us and not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency. The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the greed that with perfect complacence devours all things, the endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows, the wonder everyone sees and the wonders that fill each minute of time forever. What have you reckoned them for, Camarado? Have you reckoned them for your trade or farm work or for the profits of your store or to achieve yourself a position or to fill a gentleman's leisure or a lady's leisure? Have you reckoned that the landscape took substance and form that it might be painted in a picture? Or men and women that they might be written of and songs sung or the attraction of gravity and the great laws and harmonious combinations and the fluids of the air as subjects for the savants or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables or agriculture itself. Old institutions, these arts, libraries, legends, collections and a practice handed along in manufacturers will we rate them so high? Will we rate our cash and business high? I have no objection. I rate them as high as the highest. Then a child born of a woman and man I rate beyond all rate. We thought our union grand and our constitution grand. I do not say they are not grand and good for they are. I am this day just as much in love with them as you. Then I am in love with you and with all my fellows upon the earth. We consider Bibles and religions divine. I do not say they are not divine. I say they have all grown out of you and may grow out of you still. It is not they who give the life. It is you who give the life. Leaves are not more shed from the trees or trees from the earth than they are shed out of you. Four. The sum of all known reverence I add up in you, whoever you are. The president is there in the White House for you. It is not you who are here for him. The secretaries act in their bureaus for you not you here for them. The Congress convenes every 12th month for you. Laws, courts, the forming of states, the charters of cities, the coming and going of commerce and malls are all for you. Let's close my scholars dear. Doctrines, politics and civilization exerge from you. Sculpture and monuments and anything inscribed anywhere are tallied in you. The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reach is in you this hour and myths and tales the same. If you were not breathing and walking here where would they all be? The most renowned poems would be orations and plays would be vacuums. All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it. Did you think it was in the white or grey stone or the lines of the arches and cornices? All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments. It is not the violins and the cornets. It is not the oboe nor the beating drums nor the score of the baritone singer singing a sweet romancer nor that of the men's chorus nor that of the women's chorus. It is nearer and farther than they. Five. Will the whole come back then? Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking glass? Is there nothing greater or more? Does all sit there with you with the mystic unseen soul? Strange and horrid that paradox true I give. Objects gross and the unseen soul are one. House building, measuring, sawing the boards, blacksmithing, glass blowing, nail making, coopering, tin roofing, shingle dressing, ship joining, dock building, fish curing, flagging of sidewalks by flaggers. The pump, the pile driver, the great derrick, the coal kiln and brick kiln. Coal mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the darkness, echoes, songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts looking through smudged faces. Ironworks, forge fires in the mountains or by river banks, men around feeling the melt with huge crowbars, lumps of ore, the due combining of ore, the coal, the blast furnace and the puddling furnace, the loop lump at the bottom of the melt at last, the rolling mill, the stumpy bars of pig iron, the strong, clean shaped trail for railroads. Oilworks, silkworks, white leadworks, the sugar house, steam soles, the great mills and factories, stone cutting, shapely trimmings for facades or window or door lintels, the mallet, the tooth chisel, the jib to protect the thumb, the caulking iron, the kettle of boiling volt cement and the fire under the kettle, the cotton mill, the stevedor's hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working knife of the butcher, the ice saw and all the work with ice, the work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail maker, block maker, goats of gutter percha, papier mache, colours, brushes, brush making, glaciers implements, the veneer and glue pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the decanter and glasses, the shears and flat iron, the oil and knee strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and stool, the writing pen of quill or metal, the making of all sorts of edge tools, the brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, everything that is done by brewers, winemakers, vinegar makers, leather dressing, coachmaking, boiler making, rope twisting, distilling, sign painting, lime burning, cotton picking, electroplating, electro typing, stereotyping, stave machines, planing machines, reaping machines, ploughing machines, threshing machines, steam wagons, the cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous tray, pyrotechnie, letting off coloured fireworks at night, fancy figures and jets, beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughterhouse of the butcher, the butcher in his killing clothes, the pens of live pork, the killing hammer, the hog hook, the scalder's tub, the cutting machine, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's mull, and the plentious winter work of pork-packing, flowerworks, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice, the barrels and the half and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high piles on dwarves and levees, the men and the work of the men on ferries, railroads, coasters, fishboats, canals, the hourly routine of your own or any man's life, the shop, yard, store or factory, these shows all near you by day and night, workmen, whoever you are, your daily life. In that and them, the heft of the heaviest, in that and them, far more than you estimated and far less also. In them, realities for you and me, in them, poems for you and me, in them, not yourself, you and your soul enclose all things regardless of estimation, in them, the development good, in them, all themes, hints, possibilities. I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile. I do not advise you to stop. I do not say leadings you thought great are not great, but I say that none lead to greater than these lead to. Six. Will you seek a far off? You surely come back at last in things best known to you, finding the best or as good as the best in folks nearest to you, finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest, happiness, and knowledge not in another place, but this place, not for another hour, but this hour. Man in the first you see or touch, always in friend, brother, nice neighbor, woman in mother, sister, wife, the popular tastes and employment taking precedence in poems or anywhere. You work women and work men of these states with your own divine and strong life and all else giving place to men and women like you. When the song sings instead of the singer, when the script preaches instead of the preacher, when the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk, when I can touch the body of books by night or by day and when they touch my body back again. When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince, when the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night watchman's daughter, when warranty deeds loaf in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you. End of book 15. Recording by phone. Book 16 of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This liberalx recording is in the public domain. Recording by phone. A song of the rolling earth. One. A song of the rolling earth and of words according. Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines, those curves, angles, dots? No. Those are not the words. The substantial words are in the ground and sea. They are in the air. They are in you. Were you thinking that those were the words, those delicious sounds out of your friend's mouth? No. The real words are more delicious than they. Human bodies are words, myriads of words. In the best poems reappears the body, man's or woman's, well-shaped, natural, gay, every part, able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame. Air, soil, water, fire. Those are words. I myself am a work with them. My qualities interpenetrate with theirs. My name is nothing to them. Though it were told into three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire know of my name? A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture are words, sayings, meanings. The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women are sayings and meanings also. The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth. The masters know the earth's words and use them more than audible words. Amelioration is one of the earth's words. The earth neither lads nor hastens. It has all attributes, growths, effects, from the junk. It is not half-beautiful only. Defects and expressances show just as much as perfections show. The earth does not withhold. It is generous enough. The truths of the earth continually wait. They are not so concealed eyeball. They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print. They are imbued through all things conveying themselves willingly. Conveying a sentiment and invitation, I utter and utter. I speak not, yet if you hear me not, of what avail am I to you? To bear, to better, lacking deeds, of what avail am I? Akush, Akushay, will you rot your own fruit in your self-dare? Will you squat and stifle there? The earth does not argue, is not pathetic, has no arrangements, does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out. Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out. It does not exhibit itself, nor refuse to exhibit itself, possesses still underneath, underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the will of slaves, persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of sardine, laughter of young people, accents of bargainers, underneath these possessing words that never fail. To her children, the words of the eloquent, dumb, great mother never fail. The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail, and reflection does not fail. Also, the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail. Of the interminable sisters, of the ceaseless coutelons of sisters, of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters, the beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest. With her ample back towards every beholder, with the fascinations of youth and the equal fascinations of age, sits she whom I too love like the rest, sits undisturbed, holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes glance back from it, glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none, holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face. Seen at hand or seen at a distance, duly the twenty-four appear in public every day, duly approach and pass with their companions or a companion, looking from no countenances of their own, but from the countenances of those who are with them, from the countenances of children or women or the manly countenance, from the open countenances of animals or from inanimate things, from the landscape or waters or from the exquisite apparition of the sky, from our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them, every day in public appearing without form, but never twice with the same companion. Embracing man, embracing all, proceed to three hundred and sixty-five resistlessly round to sun, embracing all, soothing, supporting, following close three hundred and sixty-five offsets of diverse, sure and necessary as day, tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading, sunshine, storm, cold, heat, foreverwithstanding, passing, carrying, the soul's realisation and determination still inheriting, the fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing, no bulk retarding, no anchor anchoring or no rock striking, swift, glad, content, ungrieved, nothing losing, of all able and ready at any time to give strict account, the divine ship sails to divine sea. Two. Whoever you are, motion and reflection are especially for you, the divine ship sails the divine sea for you. Whoever you are, you or he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, you or he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, for none more than you are the present and the past, for none more than you is immortality. Each man to himself and each woman to herself is the word of the past and present is the word of immortality. No one can acquire for another, not one, not one can grow for another, not one. The song is to the singer and comes back most to him. The teaching is to the teacher and comes back most to him. The murder is to the murderer and comes back most to him. The theft is to the thief and comes back most to him. The love is to the lover and comes back most to him. The gift is to the giver and comes back most to him. It cannot fail. The oration is to the orator. The acting is to the actor and actress, not to the audience. And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own or the indication of his own. Three. I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete. The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken. I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth. There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborates the earth. No politics, song, religion, behaviour or what not is of account unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the earth. I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds well. It is that which contains itself which never invites and never refuses. I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words all merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the earth toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that Trent cannot touch. I swear I see what is better than to tell the best it is always to leave the best untold. When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot my tongue is ineffectual on its pivots my breath will not be obedient to its organs I become a dumb man the best of the earth cannot be told anyhow it is the best it is not what you anticipated it is cheaper easier narrow things are not dismissed from the places they held before the earth is just as positive and direct as it was before facts, religions, improvements politics, trades are as real as before but the soul is also real it too is positive and direct but in the end no proof has established it undeniable growth has established it before these to echo the tones of souls and the phrases of souls if they did not echo the phrases of souls what were they then if they had not referenced to you in a special what were they then I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold say on sayers sing on singers delve, mould pile the words of the earth work on age after age nothing is to be lost it may have to wait long but it will certainly come in use when the materials are all prepared and ready the architects shall appear I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail I swear to you they will understand you and justify you the greatest among them shall be he who best knows you and encloses all and is faithful to all he and the rest shall not forget you they shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they you shall be fully glorified in them youth, day, old age and night youth, large, lusty, loving youth full of grace, force, fascination do you know that old age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination they full blown and splendid they of the immense sun, action laughter the night follows close with millions of sounds and sleep and restoring darkness end of book 16 recording by phone book 17 of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman this Liberfox recording is in the public domain recording by phone book 17 Birds of Passage a song of the universal one come, said the Muse sing me a song that no poet yet has chanted sing me the universal in this broad earth of ours amid the measureless grossness and the slag and close and safe within its central heart nestles the seed perfection by every life a share or less none born but it is born concealed or unconcealed the seed is waiting too low keen-eyed towering science as from tall peaks to modern overlooking successive absolute fiat's issuing yet again low the soul above all science for it has history gathered like husks around the globe for it the entire star myriads roll through the sky in spiral roots by long detours as a much tacking ship upon the sea for it the partial to the permanent flowing for it the real to the ideal tends for it the mystic evolution not the right only justified what we call evil also justified forth from their masks no matter what from the huge festering trunk from craft and guile and tears health to emerge and joy joy universal out of the bulk the morbid and the shallow out of the bad majority the varied countless frauds of men and states electric antiseptic yet cleaving suffusing all only the good is universal three over the mountain gross disease and sorrow an uncalled birth is ever hovering hovering high in the pure happier air from imperfections murkiest cloud there's always forth one ray of perfect light one flash of heavens glory to fashions customs discord to the mad babled in the deafening orgies soothing each low a strain is heard just heard from some far shore the final chorus sounding oh the blessed eyes the happy hearts that see that know the guiding thread so fine along the mighty labyrinth for and thou America for the scheme's culmination it's thought and it's reality for these not for thyself thou has derived thou too surround this all embracing carrying welcoming all thou too by pathways broad and new to the ideal tendis the measured fates of other lands the grandeurs of the past are not for thee but grandeurs of thine own they affect fates and amplitudes absorbing comprehending all all eligible to all all all for immortality love like the light silently wrapping all nature's amelioration blessing all the blossoms fruits of ages orchards divine and certain forms objects growths humanities to spiritual images ripening give me oh God to sing that thought give me give him or her I love this quenchless faith and I ensemble whatever else withheld withhold not from us believe in plan of thee enclosed in time and space health peace salvation universal is it a dream nay but the lack of it the dream and failing it life's lower and wealth a dream and all the world a dream pioneers oh pioneers come my tan faced children follow well in order get your weapons ready have you your pistols have you your sharp edged axes pioneers oh pioneers for we cannot tarry here we must march my darlings we must bear the brunt of danger we the youthful sinewy races all the rest on us depend pioneers oh pioneers oh you youths western youths so impatient full of action full of manly pride and friendship plain I see you western youths see you tramping with the foremost pioneers oh pioneers have the elder races halted do they droop and end their lesson wearied over there beyond the seas we take up the task eternal and to burden and the lesson pioneers oh pioneers all the past we leave behind we debouch upon a newer mightier world varied world fresh and strong the world we seize world of labour and the march pioneers oh pioneers we detachments steady throwing down the edges through the passes of the mountains steep conquering holding daring venturing as we go the unknown ways pioneers oh pioneers we primeval forests felling we the rivers stemming vexing we and piercing deep the minds within we the surface broad surveying we the virgin soil upheaving pioneers oh pioneers Colorado men are we from the peaks gigantic from the great sierras and high plateaus from the mine and from the gully from the hunting trail we come pioneers oh pioneers from Nebraska from Arkansas central inland race are we from Missouri with the continental blood we have to intervene all the hands of comrades clasping all the southern all the northern pioneers oh pioneers oh resistless restless race oh beloved race in all oh my breast aches with tender love for all oh I mourn and yet exult I am wrapped with love for all pioneers oh pioneers raise the mighty mother mistress waving high the delicate mistress over all the starry mistress bend your heads all raise the fanged and warlike mistress stern impassive weaponed mistress pioneers oh pioneers see my children resolute children by those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging pioneers oh pioneers on and on the compact ranks with accessions ever waiting with the places of the dead quickly filled through the battle through the feet yet and never stopping pioneers oh pioneers oh to die advancing on are there some of us to droop and die has the hour come then upon the march we fittest die soon and sure the gap is filled pioneers oh pioneers all the pulses of the world falling in they beat for us movement beat holding single or together steady moving to the front all for us pioneers oh pioneers life's involved and various pageants all the forms and shows all the workmen at their work all the seamen and the landsmen all the masters with their slaves pioneers oh pioneers all the silent lovers all the prisoners in the prisons all the righteous and the wicked all the joyous all the sorrowing all the living all the dying pioneers oh pioneers I too with my soul and body we the curious trio picking wandering on our way through the shores amid the shadows pioneers oh pioneers low to darting bowling orb low to brother orbs around all the clustering suns and planets all the dazzling days all the mystic nights with dreams pioneers oh pioneers these are office they are with us all for primal needed work all the followers there in embryo wait behind we today's procession heeding we the root for travel clearing pioneers oh pioneers oh you daughters of the west oh you young and elder daughters oh you mothers and you wives never must you be divided in our ranks you move united pioneers oh pioneers minstrels latent on the prairies shrouded bars of other lands you may rest you have done your work soon I hear you coming warbling soon you rise and trump amid us pioneers oh pioneers not for delectations sweet not the cushion and the slipper not the peaceful and the studious not the riches safe and pulling not for us the tame enjoyment pioneers oh pioneers do the faceless gluttonous feast do the corpulent sleeper sleep have they looked and bolted doors still be ours the diet hard and the blanket on the ground pioneers oh pioneers as the night descended was the road of late so toilsome did we stop discouraged nodding on our way yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious pioneers oh pioneers till with sound of trumpet far far off the daybreak cold park how loud and clear I hear it wind swift to the head of the army swift spring to your places pioneers oh pioneers to you whoever you are I fear you are walking the walks of dreams I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands even now your features joys speech house trade manners troubles follies costume crimes dissipate away from you your true soul and body appear before me they stand forth out of affairs out of commerce shops work farms clothes the house buying selling eating drinking suffering dying whoever you are now I place my hand upon you that you be my poem I whisper with my lips close to your ear I have loved many women and men but I love none better than you oh I have been delitory and dumb I should have made my way straight to you long ago I should have blabbed nothing but you I should have chanted nothing but you I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you none has understood you but I understand you none has done justice to you you have not done justice to yourself none but has found you imperfect I only find no imperfection in you none but would have subordinate you I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself painters have painted their swarming groups and the center figure of all from the head of the center figure spreading a nimbus of gold colored light with a variance of heads but paint no head without its nimbus of gold colored light from my hand, from the brain of every man and woman its streams effulgently flowing forever oh I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you you have not known what you are you have slumbered upon yourself all your life your eyelids have been the same as closed what you have done returns already in mockeries your thrift, knowledge, prayers if they do not return in mockeries what is their return? the mockeries are not you underneath them and within them I see you lurk I pursue you where none else has pursued you silence, the desk, the flippant expression the night, the accustomed routine if these conceal you from others or from yourself they do not conceal you from me the shaved face, the unsteady eye the impure complexion if these balk others they do not balk me the pert apparel, the deformed attitude drunkenness, greed, premature death all these I part aside there is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you there is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman but as good as in you no pluck, no endurance in others but as good as in you no pleasure waiting for others but an equal pleasure waits for you as for me I give nothing to anyone except I give the like carefully to you I sing the songs of the glory of none not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you whoever you are, claim your own at any hazard these shows of the east and west are tame compared to you these immense meadows these interminable rivers you are immense and interminable as they these furies, elements, storms, motions of nature throws of apparent dissolution you are he or she who is master or mistress over them master or mistress in your own right over nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution the hopefuls fall from your ankles you find an unfailing sufficiency old or young, male or female rude, low, rejected by the rest whatever you are, promulges itself through birth, life, death, burial the means are provided nothing is scanted through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance ennui, what you are, picks its way France, the eighteenth year of these states a great year and place a harsh, discordant natal scream out-sounding to touch the mother's heart closer than any yet I walk the shores of my eastern sea heard over the waves the little voice saw the divine infant where she woke mournfully wailing amid the roar of cannons curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running nor from the single corpses nor those in heaps nor those born away in the tumbrels was not so desperate at the batches of death was not so shocked at the repeated fusillades of the guns pale, silent, stern what could I say to that long accrued retribution could I wish humanity different could I wish the people made of wood and stone or that there be no justice in destiny or time oh liberty, oh mate for me hear to the blaze the grape-shot and the axe in reserve to fetch them out in case of need hear to, though long repressed can never be destroyed hear to, could rise at last murdering and ecstatic hear to, demanding full arrears of vengeance hence I sign this salute over the sea and I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism but remember the little voice that I heard wailing and wait with perfect trust, no matter how long and from today, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeath cause as for all lands and I send these words to Paris with my love and I guess some chansonniers there will understand them for I guess there is latent music yet in France, floods of it oh I hear already the bustle of instruments they will soon be drowning, all that would interrupt them oh I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march it reaches hither, it swells me to joyful madness I will run, transpose it in words, to justify I will yet sing a song for you, ma femme myself and mine myself and mine, gymnastic ever to stand to cold or heat, to take good aim with a gun to sail a boat, to manage horses to beget superb children to speak readily and clearly to feel at home among common people and to hold our own in terrible positions on land and sea not for an embroiderer there will always be plenty of embroiderers I welcome them also but for the fibre of things and for inherent men and women not to chisel ornaments but to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous supreme gods that the states may realise them walking and talking let me have my own way let others promote the laws I will make no account of the laws let others praise eminent men and hold up peace I hold up agitation and conflict I praise no eminent man I rebuke to his face the one that was thought most worthy who are you and what are you secretly guilty of all your life will you turn aside all your life will you grub and chatter all your life and who are you blabbing by rote years pages languages reminiscences unwitting today that you do not know how to speak properly a single word let others finish specimens I never finish specimens I start them by exhaustless laws as nature does fresh and modern continually I give nothing as duties what others give as duties I give as living impulses shall I give the heart's action as a duty let others dispose of questions I dispose of nothing I arouse unanswerable questions who are they I see and touch and what about them what about these likes of myself that draw me so close by tender directions and in directions I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends but listen to my enemies as I myself do I charge you forever reject those who would expound me for I cannot expound myself I charge that there be no theory or school found it out of me I charge you to leave all free as I have left all free after me vista oh I see life is not short but immeasurably long I henceforth tread the world chaste temperate an early riser a steady grower every hour the semen of centuries and still of centuries I must follow up these continual lessons of the air water earth I perceive I have no time to lose year of meteors 1859 to 1860 year of meteors grouting year I would bind in words retrospective some of your deeds and signs I would sing your contest for the 19th presidency out I would sing how an old man tall with white hair mounted the scaffold in Virginia I was at hand silent I stood with teeth shut close I watched I stood very near you old man when cool and indifferent but trembling with age and your unhealed wounds he mounted the scaffold I would sing in my copious song your senses returns of the states the tables of population and products I would sing of your ships and their cargoes the proud black ships of Manhattan arriving some filled with immigrants some from the Isthmus with cargoes of gold songs thereof would I sing to all that hither word comes would welcome give and you would I sing fair stripling welcome to you from me young Prince of England remember you surging Manhattan's crowds as you passed with your cortege of nobles there in the crowds stood I and singled you out with attachment nor forget I to sing of the wonder the ship as she swam up my bay well shaped and stately the great Eastern swam up my bay she was six hundred feet long her moving swiftly surrounded by myriads of small craft I forget not to sing nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north flaring in heaven nor the strange huge meteor procession dazzling and clear shooting over our heads a moment a moment long it sailed its balls of unearthly light over our heads then departed dropped in the night and was gone of such and fitful as they I sing with gleams from them would gleam and patch these chance your chance oh year all muddled with evil and good year of forebodings year of comets and meteors transient and strange low even here one equally transient and strange as I flip through you hastily soon to fall and be gone what is this chant what am I myself but one of your meteors with antecedents one 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 Phoenicia Greece and Rome with the kelts the Scandinavian the Alps and the Saxon with antique maritime ventures laws artisanship wars and journeys with the poet the scald 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 once we have come to this new continent with the fading kingdoms and kings over there with the fading religions and priests with the small shores we look back to from her 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 too oh but it is not the years it is I it is you we touch all laws and tally all antecedents we are the scald 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 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 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 have I forgotten any part anything in the past come to me whoever and whatever till I give you recognition I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia and Hebrews I adopt each theory, myth, God and demigod I see that the old accounts, Bibles, genealogies are true without exception I assert that all past days were what they must have been and that they could know how have been better than they were and that today is what it must be and that America is and that today and America could know how be better than they are three in the name of these states and in your and my name the past the past and in the name of these states and in your and my name the present time I know that the past was great and the future will be great and I know that both curiously conjoined 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 center of all days all races and there is the meaning to us of all that has ever come of races and days or ever will come end of book 17 recording by phone book 18 of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman this Liberfox recording is in a public domain recording by phone a broadway pageant one over the western sea hither from Niffencun courteous the sword cheeked two sordid envoys leaning back in their open barouches bare-headed impassive bride today through Manhattan Libertad I do not know whether others behold what I behold in the procession along with the nobles of Niffen the errant bearers bringing up the rear hovering above around or in the ranks marching but I will sing you a song of what I behold Libertad when million-footed Manhattan un-pent descends to her pavements when the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar of love when the round-mouthed guns out of the smoke and smell I love spit their salutes when the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me and heaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze when gorgeous the countless straight stems the forests at the wars thicken with colors when every ship richly dressed carries her flag at the peak when pennants trail and street fastoons hang from the windows when Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-standers when the mass is densest when the facades of the houses are alive with people when eyes gaze riveted tens of thousands at a time when the guests from the islands advance when the pageant moves forward visible when summons is made when the answer that waited thousands of years answers I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements merge with the crowd and gaze with them two superb-faced Manhattan comrade Americanos to us, then at last the Orient comes to us, my city where our tall-topped marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides to walk in the space between today our antipodes comes the originatress comes the nest of languages the bequeathor of poems the race of eld florid with blood pensive wrapped with musings with passion sultry with perfume with ample and flowing garments with sun-burned visage with intense soul and glittering eyes the race of drama comes see my cantabile these and more are flashing to us from the procession as it moves changing a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us for not the envoys tanned Japanese from his island only lies and silent the Hindu appears the Asiatic continent itself appears the past, the dead the murky night-morning of wonder and fable inscrutable the enveloped mysteries the old and unknown hivebees the north, the sweltering south eastern Assyria the Hebrews the ancient of ancients vast desolated cities the gliding present all of these and more are in the pageant procession geography, the world is in it the great sea, the brood of islands Polynesia, the coast beyond the coast you henceforth are facing you libertad from your western golden shores the countries there with the populations the millions en masse are curiously here the swarming marketplaces the temples with idols ranged along the sides or at the end bons, dramin and blama mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic and fisherman the singing girl and the dancing girl the ecstatic persons the secluded emperors Confucius himself the great poets and heroes the warriors, the castes, all trooping up, crowding from all directions from the Altei mountains from Tibet from the four winding and far flowing rivers of China from the southern peninsula and the demicontinental islands from Malaysia these and whatever belongs to them palpable show forth to me and are seized by me seized by them and friendlily held by them till as here them all I chant libertad for themselves and for you for I too raising my voice joined the ranks of this pageant I am the chanter I chant aloud over the pageant I chant the world on my western sea I chant copious the islands beyond thick as stars in the sky I chant the new empire grander than any before as in a vision it comes to me I chant America the mistress I chant a greater supremacy I chant projected a thousand blooming cities yet in time on those groups of sea islands my sailships and steamships threading the archipelagos my stars and stripes fluttering in the wind commerce opening the sleep of ages having done its work races reborn refreshed lives works resumed the object I know not but the old the asiatic renewed as it must be commencing from this day surrounded by the world three and you libertad of the world you shall sit in the middle well poised thousands and thousands of years as today from one side the nobles of Asia come to you as tomorrow from the other side the queen of England sends her eldest son to you the sign is reversing the orb is enclosed the ring is circled the journey is done the box lid is but perceptibly opened nevertheless the perfume pours copiously out of the whole box young libertad with the venerable Asia the old mother be considerate with her now and ever hot libertad for you are all bend your proud neck to the long off mother now sending messages over the archipelagos to you bend your proud neck low for once young libertad here the children straining westward so long so wide the tramping where the precedent dim ages debouching westward from paradise so long where the centuries steadily footing it that way all the while unknown for you for reasons they are justified they are accomplished they shall now be turned the other way also to travel toward you thence they shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake libertad end of book 18 recording by phone