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GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE AND
COMPANY : MCM XIX

COPYRIGHT

1855, 1856, 1860, 1867

1871, 1876, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1888, 1891

BY WALT WHITMAN

COPYRIGHT

1897

BY RICHARD MAURICE BUCKE

THOMAS B. HARNED AND HORACE L. TRAUBEL

LITERARY EXECUTORS OF WALT WHITMAN

COPYRIGHT
1902

BY THOMAS B. HARNED AND HORACE L. TRAUBEL SURVIVING LITERARY EXECUTORS OF WALT WHITMAN

ENTERED AT STATIONERS HALL

A Broadway Pageant

I

OVER the Western sea hither from Niphon come,

Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys,

Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive, Ride to-day through Manhattan.

Libertad! I do not know whether others behold what I behold, In the procession along with the nobles of Niphon, the errand

bearers,

Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks

marching,

But I will sing you a song of what I behold Libertad.

When million-footed Manhattan unpent descends to her pave

ments,

[I love, When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar When the round-mouth'd guns out of the smoke and smell I love

spit their salutes,

When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me, and heaven

clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze,

When gorgeous the countless straight stems, the forests at the wharves, thicken with colors,

When every ship richly drest carries her flag at the peak,

VOL. II-I

When pennants trail and street-festoons hang from the windows, When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot

standers, when the mass is densest,

When the façades of the houses are alive with people, when eyes

gaze riveted tens of thousands at a time',

When the guests from the islands advance, when the pageant moves forward visible,

When the summons is made, when the answer that waited thou

sands of years answers,

I too arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze with them.

2

Superb-faced Manhattan!

Comrade Americanos! to us, then at last the Orient comes.

To us, my city,

Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides, to walk in the space between,

To-day our Antipodes comes.

The Originatress comes,

The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
The race of Brahma comes.

See my cantabile! these and more are flashing to us from the

procession,

[before us.

As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing

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