My respiration and inspiration...the beating of my heart...the passing of blood and air through my lungs, the sniff of green leaves and dry leaves an… - Walt Whitman

ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884.

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest
scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara — nor you, ye limitless prairies — nor
your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite — nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-
loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones — nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes — nor Mississippi's stream: — This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name — the
still small voice vibrating — America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen — the act itself the main, the
quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd — sea-board and inland — Texas to Maine — the Prairie States — Vermont, Virginia,
California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West — the paradox and con-
flict,
The countless snow-flakes falling — (a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:)
the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity — welcoming the darker odds, the dross: — Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify — while the
heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare-bosom’d night — press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds — night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night — mad naked summer night. — Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself, 21,” Leaves of Grass: The Deathbed Edition (BOMC, 1992)

I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every
one I meet,
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?