Published Works
Manuscripts
Biography & Correspondence
Criticism
Resources
Pictures & Sound
About the Archive
Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
contents
|
previous
|
next
View Page 194
View Page 195
View Page 196
contents
|
previous
|
next
A BROADWAY PAGEANT.
1
| OVER the Western sea hither from Niphon come, |
| Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys, |
| Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive, |
| Ride to-day through Manhattan. |
| Libertad! I do not know whether others behold what I behold, |
|
In the procession along with the nobles of Niphon, the errand-
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 unpent descends to her pavements, |
|
When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar
I love, |
|
When the round-mouth'd 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
wharves, thicken with colors, |
| When every ship richly drest carries her flag at the peak, |
| When pennants trail and street-festoons hang from the windows, |
View Page 194
|
When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-
standers, when the mass is densest, |
|
When the façades 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 the summons is made, when the answer that waited thou-
sands of years answers, |
|
I too arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with
the crowd, and gaze with them. |
2
| Superb-faced Manhattan! |
| Comrade Americanos! to us, then at last the Orient comes. |
| To us, my city, |
|
Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite
sides, to walk in the space between, |
| To-day our Antipodes comes. |
| The Originatress comes, |
| The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld, |
| Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion, |
| Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments, |
| With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes, |
| The race of Brahma 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 nor the tann'd Japanee from his island only, |
|
Lithe and silent the Hindoo appears, the Asiatic continent itself
appears, the past, the dead, |
| The murky night-morning of wonder and fable inscrutable, |
| The envelop'd mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees, |
|
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, |
View Page 195
|
The countries there with their populations, the millions en-masse
are curiously here, |
|
The swarming market-places, the temples with idols ranged along
the sides or at the end, bonze, brahmin, and llama, |
| 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 Altay moun-
tains, |
|
From Thibet, from the four winding and far-flowing rivers of
China, |
|
From the southern peninsulas and the demi-continental islands,
from Malaysia, |
|
These and whatever belongs to them palpable show forth to me,
and are seiz'd by me, |
| And I am seiz'd 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 join 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 sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes, |
| My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind, |
|
Commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work, races
reborn, refresh'd, |
|
Lives, works resumed—the object I know not—but the old, the
Asiatic renew'd as it must be, |
| Commencing from this day surrounded by the world. |
3
| And you Libertad of the world! |
|
You shall sit in the middle well-pois'd thousands and thousands of
years, |
| As to-day from one side the nobles of Asia come to you, |
|
As to-morrow from the other side the queen of England sends her
eldest son to you. |
View Page 196
| The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed, |
| The ring is circled, the journey is done, |
|
The box-lid is but perceptibly open'd, nevertheless the perfume
pours copiously out of the whole box. |
| Young Libertad! with the venerable Asia, the all-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 mes-
sages over the archipelagoes to you, |
| Bend your proud neck low for once, young Libertad. |
| Were the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping? |
|
Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise
so long? |
|
Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while
unknown, for you, for reasons? |
|
They are justified, they are accomplish'd, they shall now be turn'd
the other way also, to travel toward you thence, |
|
They shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake
Libertad. |