Читать книгу The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman - Walt Whitman - Страница 23

I hear and see not strips of cloth alone,

I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry,

I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty!

I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing,

I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then,

I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird, and look down as from a height,

I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous cities with wealth incalculable,

I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields or barns,

I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or finish'd,

I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks drawn by the locomotives,

I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans,

I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile hovering,

I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the Southern plantation, and again to California;

Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earn'd wages,

See the Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty States (and many more to come),

See forts on the shores of harbours, see ships sailing in and out;

Then over all (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen'd pennant shaped like a sword,

Runs swiftly up indicating war and defiance—and now the halyards have rais'd it,

Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner,

Discarding peace over all the sea and land.