I see the headsman withdraw and become useless;
I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy--I see no longer any axe upon it;
I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race--the
newest, largest race.
9.
America! I do not vaunt my love for you;
I have what I have.
The axe leaps!
The solid forest gives fluid utterances;
They tumble forth, they rise and form,
Hut, tent, landing, survey,
Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,
Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,
Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition house, library,
Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter, turret, porch,
Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, waggon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet,
wedge, rounce,
Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,
Work-box, chest, stringed instrument, boat, frame, and what not,
Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,
Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans, or for the poor or
sick,
Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the measure of all seas.
The shapes arise!
Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users, and all that neighbours
them,
Cutters-down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kennebec,
Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains, or by the little lakes,
or on the Columbia,
Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande--friendly gatherings,
the characters and fun,
Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellowstone river--dwellers on
coasts and off coasts,
Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice.
The shapes arise!
Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets;
Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads;
Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches;
Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake craft, river craft.
The shapes arise!
Shipyards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western Seas, and in many a
bay and by-place,
The live-oak kelsons, the pine-planks, the spars, the hackmatack-roots for
knees,
The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the workmen
busy outside and inside,
The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze, bolt,
line, square, gouge, and bead-plane.
10.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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