The paths to the house I seek to make,

But leave to those to come the house itself.

Belief I sing, and preparation;

As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the present only,

But greater still from what is yet to come,

Out of that formula for thee I sing.

The conceits of the poets of other lands I'd bring thee not,

Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,

Nor rime, nor the classics, nor perfume of foreign court or indoor library;

ΤΟ

15

20

But an odor I'd bring as from forests of pine in Maine, or breath of an Illinois prairie, With open airs of Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee, or from Texas uplands, or Florida's glades,

Or the Saguenay's black stream, or the wide blue spread of Huron,

With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes, or Yosemite,

And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the rustling sea-sound,
That endlessly sounds from the two Great Seas of the world.

And for thy subtler sense subtler refrains, Dread Mother,

Thou! mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew, thou transcendental Union!

Thought of man justified, blended with God,

25

Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee, mind-formulas fitted for thee, real and sane and large as these and thee,

By thee fact to be justified, blended with thought,

Through thy idea, lo, the immortal reality!

Through thy reality, lo, the immortal idea!

Brain of the New World, what a task is thine,

To formulate the Modern-out of the peerless grandeur of the modern,

30

39

Out of thyself, comprising science, to recast poems, churches, art,

(Recast, may-be discard them, end them-may-be their work is done, who knows?)

By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead,

To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present.

And yet thou living present brain, heir of the dead, the Old World brain,
Thou that lay folded like an unborn babe within its folds so long,

40

Thou carefully prepared by it so long — haply thou but unfoldest it, only maturest it,
It to eventuate in thee the essence of the by-gone time contain'd in thee,

Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee;
Thou but the apples, long, long, long a-growing,

45

The fruit of all the Old ripening to-day in thee.

Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy,

Of value is thy freight, 't is not the Present only,

The Past is also stored in thee.

Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the Western continent alone,
Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship, is steadied by thy spars,

50

With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee,

With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear'st the other continents.

Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant;

Steer them with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman, thou carriest great companions,

Venerable priesty Asia sails this day with thee,

And royal feudal Europe sails with thee.

Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my eyes,

Like a limitless golden cloud filling the western sky,

Emblem of general maternity lifted above all,

Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons,

Out of thy teeming womb thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing,

Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life,

World of the real — world of the twain in one,

55

World of the soul, born by the world of the real alone, led to identity, body, by it alone, 65 Yet in beginning only, incalculable masses of composite precious materials,

By history's cycles forwarded, by every nation, language, hither sent,

Ready, collected here, a freer, vast, electric world, to be constructed here,

(The true New World, the world of orbic science, morals, literatures to come),

Thou wonder world yet undefined, unform'd, neither do I define thee,

How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?

I feel thy ominous greatness evil as well as good,

I watch thee advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past,

I see thy light lighting, and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe,

But I do not undertake to define thee, hardly to comprehend thee,

I but thee name, thee prophesy, as now,

I merely thee ejaculate!

Thee in thy future,

Thee in thy only permanent life, career, thy own unloosen'd mind, thy soaring spirit,
Thee as another equally needed sun, radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all,
Thee risen in potent cheerfulness and joy, in endless great hilarity,

20

70

75

80

Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh'd so long upon the mind of man, The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;

Thee in thy larger, saner brood of female, male thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East,

85

(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear'd alike, forever equal).

Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain,

Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest material civilization must remain in vain,

Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing worship- thee in no single bible, savior, merely, Thy saviors countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant within thyself, equal to any, divine as any,

90

(Thy soaring course thee formulating, not in thy two great wars, nor in thy century's visible growth,

But far more in these leaves and chants, thy chants, great Mother!)

Thee in an education grown of thee, in teachers, studies, students, born of thee, Thee in thy democratic fetes en-masse, thy high original festivals, operas, lecturers, preachers,

Thee in thy ultimata (the preparations only now completed, the edifice on sure foundations tied),

95

Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought, thy topmost rational joys, thy love and godlike aspiration,

In thy resplendent coming literati, thy full-lung'd orators, thy sacerdotal bards, kosmic savans, These! these in thee (certain to come), to-day I prophesy.

Land tolerating all, accepting all, not for the good alone, all good for thee,

Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself,

Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.

100

(Lo, where arise three peerless stars,

To be thy natal stars my country, Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom,

Set in the sky of Law.)

Land of unprecedented faith, God's faith,

Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav'd,

105

The general inner earth so long so sedulously draped over, now hence for what it is so boldly laid bare,

Open'd by thee to heaven's light for benefit or bale.

The storm shall dash thy face, the murk of war and worse than war shall cover thee all

over,

(Wert capable of war, its tugs and trials? be capable of peace, its trials,

For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in prosperous peace, not war);

In many a smiling mask death shall approach beguiling thee, thou in disease shalt swelter, The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts seeking to strike thee deep within,

Consumption of the worst, moral consumption, shall rouge thy face with hectic,

115

But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all,
Whatever they are to-day and whatever through time they may be,
They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease from thee,

While thou, Time's spirals rounding, out of thyself, thyself still extricating, fusing,
Equable, natural, mystical Union thou (the mortal with immortal blent),

Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future, the spirit of the body and the mind,
The soul, its destinies.

120

The soul, its destinies, the real real,

(Purport of all these apparitions of the real);

In thee America, the soul, its destinies,

Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous!

By many a throe of heat and cold convuls'd (by these thyself solidifying),

Thou mental, moral orb thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World!

The Present holds thee not for such vast growth as thine,

For such unparallel'd flight as thine, such brood as thine,
The FUTURE only holds thee and can hold thee.

DEMOCRATIC VISTAS

From As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free, 1872.

125

130

ever, is certain. In those respects the republic must soon (if she does not already) outstrip all, examples hitherto afforded, and dominate the world.

To him or her within whose thought rages the battle, advancing, retreating, between democracy's convictions, aspira- 5 tions, and the people's crudeness, vice, caprices, I mainly write this essay. I shall use the words America and democracy as convertible terms. Not an ordinary one is the issue. The United States to are destined either to surmount the gorgeous history of feudalism, or else prove the most tremendous failure of time. the least doubtful am I on any prospects of their material success. The 15 gies, original, transcendental, and express

Not

triumphant future of their business, geographic and productive departments, on larger scales and in more varieties than

Admitting all this, with the priceless. value of our political institutions, general suffrage (and fully acknowledging the latest, widest opening of the doors), I say that, far deeper than these, what finally and only is to make of our Western world a nationality superior to any hither known, and out-topping the past, must be vigorous, yet unsuspected Literatures, perfect personalities and sociolo

ing (what, in highest sense, are not yet express'd at all), democracy and the modern. With these, and out of these, I

promulge new races of Teachers, and of perfect Women, indispensable to endow the birth-stock of a New World. For feudalism, caste, the ecclesiastic traditions, though palpably retreating from 5 political institutions, still hold essentially, by their spirit, even in this country, entire possession of the more important fields, indeed the very subsoil, of education, and of social standards and litera- 10

ture.

15

sufficiently overarching, the problem of humanity all over the civilized world is social and religious, and is to be firmly met and treated by literature. The priest departs, the divine literatus comes. Never was anything more wanted than, to-day, and here in the States, the poet of the modern is wanted, or the great literatus of the modern. At all times, perhaps, the central point in any nation, and that whence it is itself really sway'd the most, and whence it sways others, is its national literature, especially its archetypal poems. Above all previous lands, a great original literature is surely to become the justification and reliance (in some respects the sole reliance) of American democracy.

Few are aware how the great literature penetrates all, gives hue to all, shapes aggregates and individuals, and, after subtle ways, with irresistible power, constructs, sustains, demolishes at will. Why tower, in reminiscence, above all the nations of the earth, two special lands, petty in themselves, yet inexpressibly gigantic, beautiful, columnar? Immortal Judah lives, and Greece immortal lives, in a couple of poems.

I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences. It is curious to me that while so many voices, pens, minds, in the press, lecture-rooms, in our Congress, &c., are 20 discussing intellectual topics, pecuniary dangers, legislative problems, the suffrage, tariff and labor questions, and the various business and benevolent needs of America, with propositions, remedies, 25 often worth deep attention, there is one need, a hiatus the profoundest, that no eye seems to perceive, no voice to state. Our fundamental want to-day in the United States, with closest, amplest, ref- 30 erence to present conditions, and to the future, is of a class, and the clear idea of a class, of native authors, literatuses, far different, far higher in grade than any yet known, sacerdotal, modern, fit to 35 main support of European chivalry, the cope with our occasions, lands, permeating the whole mass of American mentality, taste, belief, breathing into it a new breath of life, giving it decision, affecting politics far more than the popular superficial suffrage, with the results inside and underneath the election of Presidents or Congresses radiating, begetting appropriate teachers, schools, manners, and, as its grandest result, accomplishing (what 45

neither the schools nor the churches and
their clergy have hitherto accomplish'd,
permanently, soundly, than a house will
stand without a substratum), a religious
and moral character beneath the political 50
and productive and intellectual bases of
the States. For know you not, dear,
earnest reader, that the people of our land
may all read and write, and may all
possess the right to vote- and yet the 55
main things may be entirely lacking?-
(and this to suggest them).

View'd, to-day, from a point of view

Nearer than this. It is not generally realized, but it is true, as the genius of Greece, and all the sociology, personality, politics and religion of those wonderful states, resided in their literature or esthetics, that what was afterwards the

feudal, ecclesiastical, dynastic world over there forming its Osseous structure, holding it together for hundreds, thousands of years, preserving its flesh and bloom, giving it form, decision, rounding it out, and so saturating it in the conscious and unconscious blood, breed, belief, and intuitions of men, that it still prevails powerful to this day, in defiance of the mighty changes of time was its literature, permeating to the very marrow, especially that major part, its enchanting songs, ballads, and poems.

To the ostent of the senses and eyes, I know, the influences which stamp the world's history are wars, uprisings or downfalls of dynasties, changeful movements of trade, important inventions, navigation, military or civil governments, advent of powerful personalities, conquerors, etc. These of course play their part; yet, it may be, a single new thought, imagination, abstract principle, even liter

ary style, fit for the time, put in shape by some great literatus, and projected among mankind, may duly cause changes, growths, removals, greater than the longest and bloodiest war, or the most stupendous merely political, dynastic, or commercial overturn.

In short, as, though it may not be realized, it is strictly true, that a few firstclass poets, philosophs, and authors, have substantially settled, and given status to the entire religion, education. law, sociology, etc., of the hitherto civilized world, by tinging and often creating the atmospheres out of which they have arisen, such 15 also must stamp, and more than ever stamp, the interior and real democratic construction of this American continent to-day, and days to come. Remember also this fact of difference, that, through the 20 antique and through the medieval ages, highest thoughts and ideals realized themselves, and their expression made its way by other arts, as much as, or even more than by, technical literature (not open to 25 the mass of persons, or even to the majority of eminent persons), such literature in our day and for current purposes is not only more eligible than all the other arts put together, but has become the only 30 general means of morally influencing the world. Painting, sculpture, and dramatic theater, it would seem, no longer play an indispensable or even important part in the workings and mediumship of 35 intellect, utility, or even high esthetics. Architecture remains, doubtless with capacities, and a real future. Then music, the combiner, nothing more spiritual, nothing more sensuous, a god, yet com- 40 pletely human, advances, prevails, holds highest place; supplying in certain wants and quarters what nothing else could supply. Yet in the civilization of to-day it is undeniable that, over all the arts, litera- 45 ture dominates, serves beyond all - shapes the character of church and school-or, at any rate, is capable of doing so. Including the literature of science, its scope is indeed unparallel'd.

the

journalism, there appear, in these States, promises, perhaps fulfilments, of highest earnestness, reality, and life. These, of course, are modern. But in the region of 5 imaginative, spinal and essential attributes, something equivalent to creation is, for our age and lands, imperatively demanded. For not only is it not enough that the new blood, new frame of democracy shall be vivified and held together merely by political means, superficial suffrage, legislation, etc., but it is clear to me that, unless it goes deeper, gets at least as firm and as warm a hold in men's hearts, emotions and belief, as, in their days, feudalism or ecclesiasticism, and inaugurates its own perennial sources, welling from the center forever, its strength will be defective, its growth doubtful, and its main charm wanting. I suggest, therefore, the possibility, should some two or three really original American poets (perhaps artists or lecturers), arise, mounting the horizon like planets, stars of the first magnitude, that, from their eminence, fusing contributions, races, far localities, etc., together, they would give more compaction and more moral identity (the quality today most needed), to these States, than all its Constitutions, legislative and judicial ties, and all its hitherto political, warlike, or materialistic experiences. As, for instance, there could hardly happen anything that would more serve the States with all their variety of origins, their diverse climes, cities, standards, etc., than possessing an aggregate of heroes, characters, exploits, sufferings, prosperity or misfortune. glory or disgrace, common to all, typical of all no less, but even greater would it be to possess the aggregation of a cluster of mighty poets, artists, teachers, fit for us, national expressers, comprehending and effusing for the men and women of the States, what is universal, native, common to all, inland and seaboard, Northern and Southern. The historians say of ancient Greece, with her ever-joyous autonomies, cities, and states, 50 that the only positive unity she ever owned or receiv'd was the sad unity of a common subjection, at the last, to foreign conquerors. Subjection, aggregation of that sort, is impossible to America; but the fear of conflicting and irreconcilable interiors, and the lack of a common skeleton, knitting all close, continually haunts. Or, if it does not. nothing is plainer

Before proceeding further, it were perhaps well to discriminate on certain points. Literature tills its crops in many fields, and some may flourish, while others lag. What I say in these Vistas has its main 55 bearing on imaginative literature, especially poetry, the stock of all. In the department of science, and the specialty of

me.