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When he or she appears materials are overaw'd,

The dispute on the soul stops,

The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn'd back, or laid

away.

What is your money-making now? what can it do now?

What is your respectability now?

What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books,

now?

Where are your jibes of being now?

Where are your cavils about the soul now?

7

A sterile landscape covers the ore, there is as good as the best for

all the forbidding appearance,

There is the mine, there are the miners,

The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish'd, the ham

mers-men are at hand with their tongs and hammers,

What always served and always serves is at hand.

Than this nothing has better served, it has served all,

Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere the Greek,

Served in building the buildings that last longer than any,

Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindustanee, Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi, served those whose relics remain in Central America,

Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars and the druids,

Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the snow-cover'd hills of Scandinavia,

Served those who time out of mind made on the granite walls rough sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean waves, Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths, served the pastoral tribes and nomads,

Served the long distant Kelt, served the hardy pirates of the Baltic, Served before any of those the venerable and harmless men of

Ethiopia,

Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure and the making of those for war,

Served all great works on land and all great works on the sea, For the mediæval ages and before the mediæval ages,

Served not the living only then as now, but served the dead.

I see the European headsman,

8

He stands mask'd, clothed in red, with huge legs and strong

naked arms,

And leans on a ponderous axe.

(Whom have you slaughter'd lately European headsman ? Whose is that blood upon you so wet and sticky?)

I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs,

I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,

Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown'd ladies, impeach'd ministers, re

jected kings,

Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains and the rest.

I see those who in any land have died for the good cause, The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out, (Mind you O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.)

I see the blood wash'd entirely away from the axe,

Both blade and helve are clean,

They spirt no more the blood of European nobles, they clasp no more the necks of queens.

I see the headsman withdraw and become useless,

I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy, I see no longer any axe upon it,

I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race, the newest, largest race.

9

(America! I do not vaunt my love for you,

I have what I have.)

The axe leaps!

The solid forest gives fluid utterances,

They tumble forth, they rise and form,

Hut, tent, landing, survey,

Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,

Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,

Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, li

brary,

Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, turret, porch,

Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mal

let, wedge, rounce,

Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,

Work-box, chest, string'd instrument, boat, frame, and what

not,

Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,

Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans or for the

poor or sick,

Manhattan steamboats and clippers taking the measure of all seas.

The shapes arise!

Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users and all that neighbors them,

Cutters down of wood and haulers of it to the Penobscot or

Kennebec,

Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains or by the

little lakes, or on the Columbia,

Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande, friendly

gatherings, the characters and fun,

Dwellers along the St. Lawrence, or north in Kanada, or down by the Yellowstone, dwellers on coasts and off coasts, Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the

ice.

The shapes arise!

Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets,

Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads,

[arches,

Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake and canal craft, river craft, Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western seas, and in many a bay and by-place,

The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the hackmatack

roots for knees,

The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the

workmen busy outside and inside,

The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze, bolt, line, square, gouge, and bead-plane.

10

The shapes arise!

The shape measur'd, saw'd, jack'd, join'd, stain'd,

The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud,

The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of the bride's bed,

The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath, the shape of the babe's cradle,

The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers' feet, The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly parents and children,

The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and woman, the roof over the well-married young man and

woman,

The roof over the supper joyously cook'd by the chaste wife, and joyously eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day's work.

The shapes arise!

The shape of the prisoner's place in the court-room, and of him

or her seated in the place,

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