像一只强壮的鸟，插上羽翼，自由而欢乐，在天空最广阔的空间里飞翔，这就是我今天对你的思念，美利加，这就是我今天为你带来的颂歌。别的地方的诗人的自负我不带给你，他们长久以来的赞美我也不带给你，韵律也好，经典也好，外国宫廷或室内图书室的芳香也好，但我今天带来的气味，仿佛是来自北方缅因州的松林——或是来自伊利诺斯州大草原的气息，或是来自弗吉尼亚、乔治亚、田纳西的露天空气——或是来自德克萨斯高地、佛罗里达的林中空地，带着黄石公园或优胜美地的景色;我要把那沙沙的海声，从世界的两大洋中，永无休止地发出来。为了你更敏锐的感觉，更敏锐的克制，啊，联合!理智的前奏，计算这些和你——适合你的心灵公式——真实的，理智的，和这些和你一样大;你，升得更高，潜得更深，比我们所知道的还要深——你这超然的联邦!由你来证明事实——与思想混合;认为人是正义的——与上帝结合:通过你的思想——瞧!不朽的现实! Through thy Reality--lo! the immortal Idea! Brain of the New World! what a task is thine! 20 To formulate the Modern.....Out of the peerless grandeur of the modern, Out of Thyself--comprising Science--to recast Poems, Churches, Art, (Recast--may-be discard them, end them--May-be their work is done-- who knows?) By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead, To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present. (And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World brain! Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long! Thou carefully prepared by it so long!--haply thou but unfoldest it-- only maturest it; It to eventuate in thee--the essence of the by-gone time contain'd in thee; Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee, 30 The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.) Sail--sail thy best, ship of Democracy! Of value is thy freight--'tis not the Present only, The Past is also stored in thee! Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone--not of thy western continent alone; Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship--is steadied by thy spars; With thee Time voyages in trust--the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee; With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear'st the other continents; Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant: --Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman--thou carryest great companions, 40 Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee, And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee. Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes, Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky; Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all; Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons; Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing, Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life; World of the Real! world of the twain in one! World of the Soul--born by the world of the real alone--led to identity, body, by it alone; 50 Yet in beginning only--incalculable masses of composite, precious materials, By history's cycles forwarded--by every nation, language, hither sent, Ready, collected here--a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here, (The true New World--the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures to come,) Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform'd--neither do I define thee; How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good; I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past; I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe; But I do not undertake to define thee--hardly to comprehend thee; 60 I but thee name--thee prophecy--as now! I merely thee ejaculate! Thee in thy future; Thee in thy only permanent life, career--thy own unloosen'd mind--thy soaring spirit; Thee as another equally needed sun, America--radiant, ablaze, swift- moving, fructifying all; Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy--thy endless, great hilarity! (Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long--that weigh'd so long upon the mind of man, The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;) Thee in thy larger, saner breeds of Female, Male--thee in thy