[Book XXXIII.  Songs of parting]

} As the Time Draws Nigh

As the time draws nigh glooming a cloud,
A dread beyond of I know not what darkens me.

I shall go forth,
I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long,
Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will
    suddenly cease.

O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this? 
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us? —­and yet it is
    enough, O soul;
O soul, we have positively appear’d—­that is enough.

} Years of the Modern

Years of the modern! years of the unperform’d! 
Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more august dramas,
I see not America only, not only Liberty’s nation but other nations
    preparing,
I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, the solidarity
    of races,
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage,
(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts
    suitable to them closed?)
I see Freedom, completely arm’d and victorious and very haughty,
    with Law on one side and Peace on the other,
A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of caste;
What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach? 
I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions,
I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken,
I see the landmarks of European kings removed,
I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give way;)
Never were such sharp questions ask’d as this day,
Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God,
Lo, how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest! 
His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere, he colonizes the
    Pacific, the archipelagoes,
With the steamship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the
    wholesale engines of war,
With these and the world-spreading factories he interlinks all
    geography, all lands;
What whispers are these O lands, running ahead of you, passing under
    the seas? 
Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe? 
Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim,
The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war,
No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and nights;
Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to
    pierce it, is full of phantoms,
Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me,
This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams
    O years! 
Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not
    whether I sleep or wake;)
The perform’d America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me,
The unperform’d, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me.