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. THE PRAIRIE STATES A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude, Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms, With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one, By all the world contributed--freedom's and law's and thrift's society, The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time's accumulations, To justify the past. IV POEMS OF DEMOCRACY TO FOREIGN LANDS I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New World, And to define America, her athletic Democracy, Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted. TO THEE OLD CAUSE To thee old cause! Thou peerless, passionate, good cause, Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea, Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands, After a strange sad war, great war for thee (I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee), These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee. (A war O soldiers not for itself alone, Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this book.) Thou orb of many orbs! Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre! Around the idea of thee the war revolving, With all its angry and vehement play of causes (With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years), These recitatives for thee,--my book and the war are one, Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself, Around the idea of thee. FOR YOU O DEMOCRACY Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, I will make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades, With the life-long love of comrades. I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies, I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks, By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades. For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme! For you, for you I am trilling these songs. THOU MOTHER WITH THY EQUAL BROOD 1