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 geyser-loops 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 quadriennial 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.