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Over the Western sea hither from Niphon come,
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Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys,
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Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive,
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Ride to-day through Manhattan.
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Libertad! I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
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In the procession along with the nobles of Niphon, the errand-bearers,
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Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching,
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But I will sing you a song of what I behold Libertad.
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When million-footed Manhattan unpent descends to her pavements,
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When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar love,
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When the round-mouth'd guns out of the smoke and smell I love
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When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me, and
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heaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze,
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When gorgeous the countless straight stems, the forests at the
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wharves, thicken with colors,
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When every ship richly drest carries her flag at the peak,
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When pennants trail and street-festoons hang from the windows,
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When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and
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foot-standers, when the mass is densest,
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When the facades of the houses are alive with people, when eyes
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gaze riveted tens of thousands at a time,
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When the guests from the islands advance, when the pageant moves
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When the summons is made, when the answer that waited thousands
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I too arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the
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crowd, and gaze with them.
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Superb-faced Manhattan!
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Comrade Americanos! to us, then at last the Orient comes.
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Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite
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sides, to walk in the space between,
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To-day our Antipodes comes.
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The Originatress comes,
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The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,
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Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
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Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
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With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
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The race of Brahma comes.
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See my cantabile! these and more are flashing to us from the procession,
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As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.
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For not the envoys nor the tann'd Japanee from his island only,
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Lithe and silent the Hindoo appears, the Asiatic continent itself
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appears, the past, the dead,
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The murky night-morning of wonder and fable inscrutable,
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The envelop'd mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees,
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The north, the sweltering south, eastern Assyria, the Hebrews, the
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Vast desolated cities, the gliding present, all of these and more
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are in the pageant-procession.
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Geography, the world, is in it,
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The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond,
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The coast you henceforth are facing—you Libertad! from your Western
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The countries there with their populations, the millions en-masse
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The swarming market-places, the temples with idols ranged along the
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sides or at the end, bonze, brahmin, and llama,
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Mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman,
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The singing-girl and the dancing-girl, the ecstatic persons, the
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Confucius himself, the great poets and heroes, the warriors, the castes,
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Trooping up, crowding from all directions, from the Altay mountains,
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From Thibet, from the four winding and far-flowing rivers of China,
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From the southern peninsulas and the demi-continental islands, from
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These and whatever belongs to them palpable show forth to me, and
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And I am seiz'd by them, and friendlily held by them,
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Till as here them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you.
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For I too raising my voice join the ranks of this pageant,
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I am the chanter, I chant aloud over the pageant,
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I chant the world on my Western sea,
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I chant copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky,
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I chant the new empire grander than any before, as in a vision it
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I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy,
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I chant projected a thousand blooming cities yet in time on those
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groups of sea-islands,
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My sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes,
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My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind,
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Commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work, races
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Lives, works resumed—the object I know not—but the old, the Asiatic
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renew'd as it must be,
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Commencing from this day surrounded by the world.
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And you Libertad of the world!
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You shall sit in the middle well-pois'd thousands and thousands of years,
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As to-day from one side the nobles of Asia come to you,
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As to-morrow from the other side the queen of England sends her
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The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed,
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The ring is circled, the journey is done,
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The box-lid is but perceptibly open'd, nevertheless the perfume
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pours copiously out of the whole box.
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Young Libertad! with the venerable Asia, the all-mother,
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Be considerate with her now and ever hot Libertad, for you are all,
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Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother now sending messages
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over the archipelagoes to you,
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Bend your proud neck low for once, young Libertad.
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Here the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping?
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Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long?
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Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while
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unknown, for you, for reasons?
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They are justified, they are accomplish'd, they shall now be turn'd
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the other way also, to travel toward you thence,
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They shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake Libertad.
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