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Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men?

Have you learn'd the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography,

pride, freedom, friendship of the land? its substratums and objects?

Have you consider'd the organic compact of the first day of the

first year of Independence, sign'd by the Commissioners, ratified

by the States, and read by Washington at the head of the army?

Have you possess'd yourself of the Federal Constitution?

Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems behind them,

and assumed the poems and processes of Democracy?

Are you faithful to things? do you teach what the land and sea, the

bodies of men, womanhood, amativeness, heroic angers, teach?

Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities?

Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls,

fierce contentions? are you very strong? are you really of the

whole People?

Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?

Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating now to

life itself?

Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these States?

Have you too the old ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality?

Do you hold the like love for those hardening to maturity? for the

last-born? little and big? and for the errant?

What is this you bring my America?

Is it uniform with my country?

Is it not something that has been better told or done before?

Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some ship?

Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness?—Is the good old cause in it?

Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians,

literats, of enemies' lands?

Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?

Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?

Does it sound with trumpet-voice the proud victory of the Union in

that secession war?

Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?

Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my

strength, gait, face?

Have real employments contributed to it? original makers, not mere

amanuenses?

Does it meet modern discoveries, calibres, facts, face to face?

What does it mean to American persons, progresses, cities? Chicago,

Kanada, Arkansas?

Does it see behind the apparent custodians the real custodians

standing, menacing, silent, the mechanics, Manhattanese, Western

men, Southerners, significant alike in their apathy, and in the

promptness of their love?

Does it see what finally befalls, and has always finally befallen,

each temporizer, patcher, outsider, partialist, alarmist,

infidel, who has ever ask'd any thing of America?

What mocking and scornful negligence?

The track strew'd with the dust of skeletons,

By the roadside others disdainfully toss'd.

13

Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill'd from poems pass away,

The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes,

Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soil of literature,

America justifies itself, give it time, no disguise can deceive it

or conceal from it, it is impassive enough,

Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them,

If its poets appear it will in due time advance to meet them, there

is no fear of mistake,

(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr'd till his country

absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb'd it.)

He masters whose spirit masters, he tastes sweetest who results

sweetest in the long run,

The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint;

In the need of songs, philosophy, an appropriate native grand-opera,

shipcraft, any craft,

He or she is greatest who contributes the greatest original

practical example.

Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, appears on the streets,

People's lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive knowers,

There will shortly be no more priests, I say their work is done,

Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetual emergencies here,

Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death you shall be superb,