当我独自坐在蔚蓝的安大略海岸上，默想着这些伟大的日子，回忆着已经恢复的和平和再也不会回来的死人的时候，一个面目狰狞、高大威武的幽灵向我走来。它说，给我唱一首来自美国灵魂的诗——给我唱一首胜利的颂歌;开始自由的进行曲——更为有力的进行曲;在你离开之前，请为我唱一首民主的阵痛之歌。(民主——注定的征服者——但到处都是奸诈的微笑，每一步都是死亡和不忠。)一个宣布自己的民族，我自己创造了唯一能被欣赏的成长，我不拒绝任何东西，接受一切，然后以我自己的形式再现一切。一个品种的证据是在时间和行为;我们是什么，我们就是什么——出生就足以反驳反对意见;我们挥舞着自己，就像挥舞着武器一样。我们自身强大而强大，我们自身具有执行力——我们自身的多样性足以让我们满足，我们对自己来说是最美丽的，对自己来说也是最美丽的;我们站在中间，从那里向世界分支; From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn. Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves, 20 Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only. (O mother! O sisters dear! If we are lost, no victor else has destroy'd us; It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.) Have you thought there could be but a single Supreme? There can be any number of Supremes--One does not countervail another, any more than one eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another. All is eligible to all, All is for individuals--All is for you, No condition is prohibited--not God's, or any. All comes by the body--only health puts you rapport with the universe. 30 Produce great persons, the rest follows. America isolated I sing; I say that works made here in the spirit of other lands, are so much poison in The States. (How dare such insects as we see assume to write poems for America? For our victorious armies, and the offspring following the armies?) Piety and conformity to them that like! Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like! I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, Crying, Leap from your seats, and contend for your lives! I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every one I meet; 40 Who are you, that wanted only to be told what you knew before? Who are you, that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense? (With pangs and cries, as thine own, O bearer of many children! These clamors wild, to a race of pride I give.) O lands! would you be freer than all that has ever been before? If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me. Fear grace--Fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse, Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice; Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature, Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men. 50 Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials, America brings builders, and brings its own styles. The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work, and pass'd to other spheres, A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done. America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards, Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound--initiates the true use of precedents, Does not repel them, or the past, or what they have produced under their forms, Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the house, Perceives that it waits a little while in the door--that it was fittest for its days, That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches, 60 And that he shall be fittest for his days. Any period, one nation must lead, One land must be the promise and reliance of the future. These States are the amplest poem, Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations, Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the day and night, Here is what moves in magnificent masses, careless of particulars, Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the Soul loves, Here the flowing trains--here the crowds, equality, diversity, the Soul loves. Land of lands, and bards to corroborate! 70 Of them, standing among them, one lifts to the light his west-bred face, To him the hereditary countenance bequeath'd, both mother's and father's, His first parts substances, earth, wate