I’m
not a huge poetry guy. But when I do force myself to dip an occasional toe in
that literary form, the poems I gravitate towards are usually contemporary
and very simple in language. Because of the timely subject matter, I’ll make an
exception for this poem by Walt Whitman. (Also because he uses the word “powerfulest,”
the band-name-worthy phrase “spasmic geyserloops,” and the awesome visual
imagery of “The final ballot-shower from East to West.” See for yourself- and
go vote tomorrow!:
Election Day, November
1884
By Walt Whitman
If
I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
’Twould
not be you, Niagara—nor you, ye limitless prairies—nor your huge rifts of
canyons, Colorado,
Nor
you, Yosemite—nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to
the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor
Oregon’s white cones—nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes—nor Mississippi’s stream:
—This
seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name—the still small voice
vibrating—America’s choosing day,
(The
heart of it not in the chosen—the act itself the main, the quadrennial
choosing,)
The
stretch of North and South arous’d-sea-board and inland-Texas to Maine—the
Prairie States—Vermont, Virginia, California,
The
final ballot-shower from East to West—the paradox and conflict,
The
countless snow-flakes falling—(a swordless conflict,
Yet
more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the peaceful choice of
all,
Or
good or ill humanity—welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
—Foams
and ferments the wine? it serves to purify—while the heart pants, life glows:
These
stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell’d
Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.
