Poems by Walt Whitman

by Walt Whitman

I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth;
I see them welding State to State, city to city, through North America;
I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe;
I see them in Asia and in Africa.

I see the electric telegraphs of the earth; I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains, passions, of my race.

I see the long river-stripes of the earth;
I see where the Mississippi flows—I see where the Columbia flows;
I see the Great River, and the Falls of Niagara;
I see the Amazon and the Paraguay;
I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River, the
Yiang-tse, and the Pearl;
I see where the Seine flows, and where the Loire, the Rhone, and the
Guadalquivir flow;
I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder;
I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po;
I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay.

6.

I see the site of the old empire of Assyria, and that of Persia, and that
of India;
I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara.
I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in human
forms;
I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth—oracles,
sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, lamas, monks, muftis, exhorters;
I see where druids walked the groves of Mona—I see the mistletoe and
vervain;
I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods—I see the old
signifiers.

I see Christ once more eating the bread of His last supper, in the midst of youths and old persons: I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toiled faithfully and long, and then died; I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limbed Bacchus; I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on his head; I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, Do not weep for me, This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country—I now go back there, I return to the celestial sphere, where every one goes in his turn.

7.

I see the battlefields of the earth—grass grows upon them, and blossoms
and corn;
I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions.

I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events, heroes, records of the earth; I see the places of the sagas; I see pine-trees and fir-frees torn by northern blasts; I see granite boulders and cliffs—I see green meadows and lakes; I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors; I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restless oceans, that the dead men's spirits, when they wearied of their quiet graves, might rise up through the mounds, and gaze on the tossing billows, and be refreshed by storms, immensity, liberty, action.

I see the steppes of Asia;
I see the tumuli of Mongolia—I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs;
I see the nomadic tribes, with herds of oxen and cows;
I see the table-lands notched with ravines—I see the jungles and deserts;
I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tailed sheep, the
antelope, and the burrowing-wolf.