What Best I See in Thee
by Walt Whitman
To U. S. G. return'd from his World's Tour.
What best I see in thee
Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways,
Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,
Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,
Or thou the man whom feudal Europe fêted, venerable Asia swarm'd upon
Who walk'd with kings with even pace the round world's promenade;
But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,
Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,
Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front,
Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round world's promenade,
Were all so justified.
| from The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman (1918) | |
| Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood | As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days 
|
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