There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now; And will never be any more perfection than there i… - Walt Whitman

What is this you bring my America?
Is it uniform with my country?
Is it not something that has been better told or done before?
Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some ship?
Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness? — is the good old
cause in it?
Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians,
literats, of enemies' lands?
Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?
Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?
Does it sound with trumpet-voice the proud victory of the Union
in that secession war?
Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?
Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my
strength, gait, face?
Have real employments contributed to it? original makers, not
mere amanuenses?
Does it meet modern discoveries, calibres, facts, face to face?
What does it mean to American persons, progresses, cities? Chi-
cago, Kanada, Arkansas?
Does it see behind the apparent custodians the real custodians
standing, menacing, silent, the mechanics, Manhattanese,
Western men, Southerners, significant alike in their apathy,
and in the promptness of their love?
Does it see what finally befalls, and has always finally befallen, each
temporizer, patcher, outsider, partialist, alarmist, infidel,
who has ever ask'd any thing of America?

Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, when I give I give myself.

مطوفًا في الفكر

(بعد قراءة لهيجل)
مطوفًا
أفكر في الكون،
رأيت القليل الذي هو خير
يتقدم بخطى ثابتة
نحو الخلود.
ورأيت الكثير الذي هو شرّ
يمضي سريعًا:
ينحلّ
ويتبدّد
ويموت.