1. ۱1
2. ۲A CALIFORNIA song!
3. ۳A prophecy and indirection—a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air;
4. ۴A chorus of dryads, fading, departing—or hamadryads departing;
5. ۵A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,
6. ۶Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.
7. ۷
8. ۸Farewell, my brethren,
9. ۹Farewell, O earth and sky—farewell, ye neighboring waters;
10. ۱۰My time has ended, my term has come.
11. ۱۱
12. ۱۲2
13. ۱۳Along the northern coast,
14. ۱۴Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves,
15. ۱۵In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country,
16. ۱۶With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse,
17. ۱۷With crackling blows of axes, sounding musically, driven by strong arms,
18. ۱۸Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes—there in the Redwood forest dense,
19. ۱۹I heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting.
20. ۲۰
21. ۲۱The choppers heard not—the camp shanties echoed not;
22. ۲۲The quick-ear’d teamsters, and chain and jack-screw men, heard not,
23. ۲۳As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to join the refrain;
24. ۲۴But in my soul I plainly heard.
25. ۲۵
26. ۲۶Murmuring out of its myriad leaves,
27. ۲۷Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high,
28. ۲۸Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs—out of its foot-thick bark,
29. ۲۹That chant of the seasons and time—chant, not of the past only, but the future.
30. ۳۰
31. ۳۱3
32. ۳۲You untold life of me,
33. ۳۳And all you venerable and innocent joys,
34. ۳۴Perennial, hardy life of me, with joys, ’mid rain, and many a summer sun,
35. ۳۵And the white snows, and night, and the wild winds;
36. ۳۶O the great patient, rugged joys! my soul’s strong joys, unreck’d by man;
37. ۳۷(For know I bear the soul befitting me—I too have consciousness, identity,
38. ۳۸And all the rocks and mountains have—and all the earth;)
39. ۳۹Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,
40. ۴۰Our time, our term has come.
41. ۴۱
42. ۴۲Nor yield we mournfully, majestic brothers,
43. ۴۳We who have grandly fill’d our time;
44. ۴۴With Nature’s calm content, and tacit, huge delight,
45. ۴۵We welcome what we wrought for through the past,
46. ۴۶And leave the field for them.
47. ۴۷
48. ۴۸For them predicted long,
49. ۴۹For a superber Race—they too to grandly fill their time,
50. ۵۰For them we abdicate—in them ourselves, ye forest kings!
51. ۵۱In them these skies and airs—these mountain peaks—Shasta—Nevadas,
52. ۵۲These huge, precipitous cliffs—this amplitude—these valleys grand—Yosemite,
53. ۵۳To be in them absorb’d, assimilated.
54. ۵۴
55. ۵۵4
56. ۵۶Then to a loftier strain,
57. ۵۷Still prouder, more ecstatic, rose the chant,
58. ۵۸As if the heirs, the Deities of the West,
59. ۵۹Joining, with master-tongue, bore part.
60. ۶۰
61. ۶۱Not wan from Asia’s fetishes,
62. ۶۲Nor red from Europe’s old dynastic slaughter-house,
63. ۶۳(Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and scaffolds every
64. ۶۴ where,)
65. ۶۵But come from Nature’s long and harmless throes—peacefully builded thence,
66. ۶۶These virgin lands—Lands of the Western Shore,
67. ۶۷To the new Culminating Man—to you, the Empire New,
68. ۶۸You, promis’d long, we pledge, we dedicate.
69. ۶۹
70. ۷۰You occult, deep volitions,
71. ۷۱You average Spiritual Manhood, purpose of all, pois’d on yourself—giving, not taking
72. ۷۲ law,
73. ۷۳You Womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and love, and aught that
74. ۷۴ comes
75. ۷۵ from life and love,
76. ۷۶You unseen Moral Essence of all the vast materials of America, (age upon age,
77. ۷۷ working
78. ۷۸ in Death the same as Life,)
79. ۷۹You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and mould the New World,
80. ۸۰ adjusting
81. ۸۱ it to Time and Space,
82. ۸۲You hidden National Will, lying in your abysms, conceal’d, but ever alert,
83. ۸۳You past and present purposes, tenaciously pursued, may-be unconscious of
84. ۸۴ yourselves,
85. ۸۵Unswerv’d by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface;
86. ۸۶You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts, statutes,
87. ۸۷ literatures,
88. ۸۸
89. ۸۹Here build your homes for good—establish here—These areas entire, Lands of the Western
90. ۹۰ Shore,
91. ۹۱We pledge, we dedicate to you.
92. ۹۲
93. ۹۳For man of you—your characteristic Race,
94. ۹۴Here may be hardy, sweet, gigantic grow—here tower, proportionate to Nature,
95. ۹۵Here climb the vast, pure spaces, unconfined, uncheck’d by wall or roof,
96. ۹۶Here laugh with storm or sun—here joy—here patiently inure,
97. ۹۷Here heed himself, unfold himself (not others’ formulas heed)—here fill
98. ۹۸ his time,
99. ۹۹To duly fall, to aid, unreck’d at last,
100. ۱۰۰To disappear, to serve.
101. ۱۰۱
102. ۱۰۲Thus, on the northern coast,
103. ۱۰۳In the echo of teamsters’ calls, and the clinking chains, and the music of choppers’ axes,
104. ۱۰۴
105. ۱۰۵The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the groan,
106. ۱۰۶Such words combined from the Redwood-tree—as of wood-spirits’ voices ecstatic, ancient and
107. ۱۰۷ rustling,
108. ۱۰۸The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,
109. ۱۰۹All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,
110. ۱۱۰From the Cascade range to the Wasatch—or Idaho far, or Utah,
111. ۱۱۱To the deities of the Modern henceforth yielding,
112. ۱۱۲The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity—the settlements, features all,
113. ۱۱۳In the Mendocino woods I caught.
114. ۱۱۴
115. ۱۱۵5
116. ۱۱۶The flashing and golden pageant of California!
117. ۱۱۷The sudden and gorgeous drama—the sunny and ample lands;
118. ۱۱۸The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado south;
119. ۱۱۹Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air—valleys and mountain cliffs;
120. ۱۲۰The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow—the silent, cyclic chemistry;
121. ۱۲۱The slow and steady ages plodding—the unoccupied surface ripening—the rich ores forming
122. ۱۲۲ beneath;
123. ۱۲۳At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,
124. ۱۲۴A swarming and busy race settling and organizing every where;
125. ۱۲۵Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the whole world,
126. ۱۲۶To India and China and Australia, and the thousand island paradises of the Pacific;
127. ۱۲۷Populous cities—the latest inventions—the steamers on the rivers—the railroads—with
128. ۱۲۸ many a thrifty farm, with machinery,
129. ۱۲۹And wool, and wheat, and the grape—and diggings of yellow gold.
130. ۱۳۰
131. ۱۳۱6
132. ۱۳۲But more in you than these, Lands of the Western Shore!
133. ۱۳۳(These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,)
134. ۱۳۴I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years, till now deferr’d,
135. ۱۳۵Promis’d, to be fulfill’d, our common kind, the Race.
136. ۱۳۶
137. ۱۳۷The New Society at last, proportionate to Nature,
138. ۱۳۸In Man of you, more than your mountain peaks, or stalwart trees imperial,
139. ۱۳۹In Woman more, far more, than all your gold, or vines, or even vital air.
140. ۱۴۰
141. ۱۴۱Fresh come, to a New World indeed, yet long prepared,
142. ۱۴۲I see the Genius of the Modern, child of the Real and Ideal,
143. ۱۴۳Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the past so grand,
144. ۱۴۴To build a grander future.