I

Our Country still is in the womb, dark Time. It shows life by its brisk and robust turns, Which thrill the Mother, Liberty, who yearns To see her man-child born. Oh, how sublime With genius, not of one, but every climb Where art forms beauty, or the spirit spurns The foul and spurious,--her desire, that burns Prenatally in him, to form him prime!

Oh People, all--Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, English, Irish, German, Jew, and Greek-- What see you, as you climb the Future's Peak? Oh! no illusion. What looms there, shall wrench From life, all monsters out from Hell, to seek Dead consciences and plague earth with their stench.