The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

The great steady wind from west to west-by-south.

       Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters.

       But I am not the sea nor the red sun,

       I am not the wind with girlish laughter,

       Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes,

       Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death,

       But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,

       Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land,

       Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings,

       And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant,

       Aloft there flapping and flapping.

      Child

      O father it is alive—it is full of people—it has children,

       O now it seems to me it is talking to its children,

       I hear it—it talks to me—O it is wonderful!

       O it stretches—it spreads and runs so fast—O my father,

       It is so broad it covers the whole sky.

      Father

      Cease, cease, my foolish babe,

       What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases me;

       Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants aloft,

       But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall'd houses.

      Banner and Pennant

      Speak to the child O bard out of Manhattan,

       To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,

       Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all—and yet we know not why,

       For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing,

       Only flapping in the wind?

      Poet

      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.

Banner and Pennant