I heard that you ask’d for something to define America, her athletic democracy,
Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted.
I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a free march for these states,
Marches humanitarian, to be exhilarating music to them, years, centuries hence,
That there shall be comity by day and by night between all the states.

America! America! thee, ever thee, I sing,
A special song I’d sing o’er all the rest, for thee, the future,
Americanos! for you a programme of chants,
To show that we, here and today, are eligible to the grandest and the best,
States! these! to hold you together as firmly as the earth itself is held together,
Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only.

Take my leaves America, take them south and take them north,
Surround them east and west, for they would surround you,
Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring—
Who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en-masse really are?
I’d show away ahead thy real union, and how it may be accomplish’d.

America, I do not vaunt my love for you,
I have what I have,
The old breath of life, ever new,
Here! I pass it by contact to you, America,
This is the breath for America, because it is my breath,
America isolated yet embodying all, what is it finally except myself?
These states, what are they except myself?

It is not America who is so great,
It is I who am great or to be great—it is you up there, or anyone,
All I love America for, is contained in men and women like you,
The American compact is altogether with individuals,
(Mother! with subtle sense severe, with the naked sword in your hand,
I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with individuals.)

O I see flashing that this America is only you and me,
Its Congress is you and me, the officers, capitols, are you and me,
Its ample geography, the sierras, the prairies, deserts, forests, are you and me,
Its power, weapons, armies, ships, wars, peace, are you and me,
Its inventions, science, schools, are you and me,
Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me,
The perpetual arrival of immigrants are you and me,
Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,
Failures, successes, births, deaths, are you and me,
Natural and artificial are you and me,
The north, south, east, west, are you and me,
Past, present, future, are only you and me.

Once more I proclaim the whole of America for each individual, without exception,
Plowing up in earnest the interminable average fallows of humanity is the justification and main purpose of these United States,
To raise a refuge strong and free for practical average use, for man and woman,
With radical and resistless power to assert the individual.

America must be individualistic, yet not individualistic—
What most needs fostering, in all parts of the United States, is this fused and fervent identity of the individual, whoever he or she may be, and wherever the place, with the idea and fact of American totality—the ever-overarching American ideas of ensemble and of equal brotherhood, the modern composite nation, form’d from all, with room for all.
To American democracy, both ideas must be fufill’d, and the loss of vitality of either one will indeed be the loss of vitality of the other.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
I hear the workman singing and the farmer’s wife singing, the common people singing,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else.
But their manners, speech, dress, friendships—the picturesque looseness of their carriage—the fluency of their speech—their aversion to anything indecorous or soft or mean—the fierceness of their roused resentment—their curiosity and welcome of novelty—their self-esteem and wonderful sympathy—their deathless attachment to freedom—the air they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors—these too are unrhymed poetry.
The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem,
These states are the amplest poem.  

NEXT: AMERICAN IDEALS

The texts in this anthology should NOT be cited as direct quotations from Whitman. If you want to quote from this site for something you are writing or posting, please read this first (click here).