America (by Walt Whitman)

America

by Walt Whitman

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,

All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,

Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,

A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,

Chair'd in the adamant of Time.

America (by Claude McKay)

America

by Claude McKay

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,

And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,

Stealing my breath of life, I will confess

I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!

Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,

Giving me strength erect against her hate.

Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.

Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,

I stand within her walls with not a shred

Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.

Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,

And see her might and granite wonders there,

Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,

Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

I Hear America Singing

I Hear America Singing

by Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Tragedy

" Greek tragedy met her death in a different way from all the older sister arts: she died tragically by her own hand, after irresolvable conflicts, while the others died happy and peaceful at an advanced age. If a painless death, leaving behind beautiful progeny, is the sign of a happy natural state, then the endings of the other arts show us the example of just such a happy natural state: they sink slowly, and with their dying eyes they behold their fairer offspring, who lift up their heads in bold impatience. The death of Greek tragedy, on the other hand, left a great void whose effects were felt profoundly, far and wide; as once Greek sailors in Tiberius' time heard the distressing cry 'the god Pan is dead' issuing from a lonely island, now, throughout the Hellenic world, this cry resounded like an agonized lament: 'Tragedy is dead! Poetry itself died with i! Away, away with you, puny, stunted imitators! Away with you to Hades, and eat your fill of the old masters' crumbs!' "

Another New World

The leading lights of the age all wondered among themselves what I would do next. After all that I'd found, in my circles around the world, was there anything left?

"Gentlemen," I said, "I've studied the maps, and if what I am thinking is right, there's another new world, at the top of the world, for whoever can break through the ice."

I looked 'round the room, in that way I once had, and I saw that they wanted belief, so I said, "All I've got are my guts and my God," then I paused, "and the Annabel Lee."

Oh, the Annabel Lee, I saw their eyes shine, the most beautiful ship in the sea -- my Nina, my Pinta, my Santa María, my beautiful Annabel Lee...

That spring we set sail, and the crowd waved from shore, and on board the sailors waved caps, but I'd never had family, just the Annabel Lee, so I never had cause to look back. I just studied the charts, set the course north, and towards dark I drifted toward sleep, and I dreamed of the fine, deep harbor I'd find past the ice, for my Annabel Lee.

After that, it got colder, and the world got quiet. It was never quite day or quite night, and the sea turned the color of sky turned the color of sea turned the color of ice. After that, all around us was vastness, one glassy desert of arsenic white, and the waves that once lifted us, shifted instead into drifts against Annabel's sides. And the crew gathered closer, at first for the comfort, but each morning would bring a new set of tracks in the snow, leading over the edge of the world, till I was the only one left. After that, it gets cloudy, but it feels like I laid there for days, or maybe for months, but Annabel held me, the two of us happy, just to think back on all we had done.

I told her of the other new worlds we'd discover as she gave up her body to me. As I chopped up her mainsail for timber, I told her of all that we still had to see. As the frost turned her moorings to nine-tails and the wind lashed her sides in the cold, I burned her to keep me alive every night in the loving embrace of her hold.

I can't call it rescue, what brought me back here to this old world to drink and decline. Pretend that the search for another new world was well worth the burning of mine, but sometimes at night, in my dreams, comes the singing of some unheard tropical bird, and I smile in my sleep, thinking Annabel Lee's finally made it to the top of the world. Yeah, sometimes at night in my dreams comes the singing of some unheard tropical bird, and I smile in my sleep, thinking Annabel Lee's finally found another new world.

(~ by Josh Ritter,
"Another New World", #11
from the album "So Runs the World Away" ~)