Poet: 
My limbs, my veins dilate, my theme is clear at last, Banner so broad advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and resolute, I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen’d and blinded, My hearing and tongue are come to me, (a little child taught me,) I hear from above O pennant of war your ironical call and demand, Insensate! insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you,) O banner!  Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all their
    prosperity, (if need be, you shall again have every one of those
    houses to destroy them,
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast,
    full of comfort, built with money,
May they stand fast, then? not an hour except you above them and all
    stand fast;)
O banner, not money so precious are you, not farm produce you, nor
    the material good nutriment,
Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships, Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and
    carrying cargoes,
Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues—­but you as henceforth
    I see you,
Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars,
    (ever-enlarging stars,)
Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch’d by the sun,
    measuring the sky,
(Passionately seen and yearn’d for by one poor little child, While others remain busy or smartly talking, forever teaching
    thrift, thrift;)
O you up there!  O pennant! where you undulate like a snake hissing
    so curious,
Out of reach, an idea only, yet furiously fought for, risking bloody
    death, loved by me,
So loved—­O you banner leading the day with stars brought from the night!  Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all—­(absolute
    owner of all)—­O banner and pennant! 
I too leave the rest—­great as it is, it is nothing—­houses, machines
    are nothing—­I see them not,
I see but you, O warlike pennant!  O banner so broad, with stripes,
    sing you only,
Flapping up there in the wind.

} Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps

     1
Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep, Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour’d what the earth gave me, Long I roam’d amid the woods of the north, long I watch’d Niagara pouring, I travel’d the prairies over and slept on their breast, I cross’d
    the Nevadas, I cross’d the plateaus,
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail’d out to sea, I sail’d through the storm, I was refresh’d by the storm, I watch’d with joy the threatening maws of the waves,

I mark’d the white combs where they career’d so high, curling over,
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds,
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb!  O wild as my
    heart, and powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow’d after the lightning,