Poem January 12, 1899 Issue

A Prophecy

Walt Whitman

I CHANT the world on my western sea.
I chant copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky;
I chant the new empire grander than any before, as in a
vision it comes to me;
I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy;
I chant projected a thousand blooming cities yet in time on
those groups of sea islands;
My sailships and steamships threading the archipelagoes.
My Stars and Stripes fluttering in the wind:
Commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work,
races reborn, refresh'd,
Lives, works resumed—the object I know not—but the old,
the Asiatic renew'd as it must be,
Commencing from this day surrounded by the world.

Walt Whitman

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