When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to its pavements; When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I 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--when heaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze; When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves, thicken with colours; When every ship, richly dressed, carries her flag at the peak; When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows; 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 thousands of years, answers; I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze with them. 4. 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, To-day our Antipodes comes. The Originatress comes, The land of Paradise--land of the Caucasus--the nest of birth, 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. Not the errand-bearing princes, nor the tanned Japanee only; Lithe and silent, the Hindoo appears--the whole Asiatic continent itself appears--the Past, the dead, The murky night-morning of wonder and fable, inscrutable, The enveloped mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees, The North--the sweltering South--Assyria--the Hebrews--the Ancient of ancients, Vast desolated cities--the gliding Present--all of these, and more, are in the pageant-procession.