TO THE STATES

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Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north,
          your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that
          the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots,
          we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)

1860

© Walt Whitman
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© E-publisher LiterNet, 03.05.2009
The Sun Is but a Morning Star. Anthology of American Literature. Edited by Albena Bakratcheva. Varna: LiterNet, 2008-2010