ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884

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 geyserloops 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 quadrennial 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.

what?

I got it.

I got it, how - as usual - very melodramatic.
To put American elections into the same line of prose as Rome or Napoleon...it's painfully self-presuming.

it's painfully self-presuming.

And you've been dealing with us Yank's for how long? some just call it the American way.

You expect humility from Walt Whitman?

Haha..

Yep Byl.

WW is the quintessential American.

WW is a poor example of an standard American , instead he's an example of the Ugly American many paint us to be.

I got it, how - as usual - very melodramatic.
To put American elections into the same line of prose as Rome or Napoleon...it's painfully self-presuming.


From time to time I could have sworn you compaired the US to the fall of the roman empire. Its fitting then.

From time to time I could have sworn you compaired the US to the fall of the roman empire. Its fitting then.

/nod I believe I've heard similar sentiments from him about us too.

Now now we really all need to cut Halo some slack. I't can't be easy trying to take on an air of superiority while sittng firmly as a part the Ninetenth's century's also ran's.

People need to learn to appreciate Walt.

The fact that he was boastful and prideful was a direct challenge to the social norms of the day.

He was the first great American poet and if scholars 30,000 years from now want an insight into what America was about, Whitman will be required reading.

He was a great poet, I make no bones about appreciating his works.

What I pointed out was that you claimed he was the quintessential American. That's a false statement as he took pride in bucking the system and being different than his peers.

He was a great poet, I make no bones about appreciating his works.

What I pointed out was that you claimed he was the quintessential American. That's a false statement as he took pride in bucking the system and being different than his peers.

Isn't that truly the American way?

Isn't that truly the American way?

It is in fact what has been a defining factor in the greatest of Americans.

Have you looked around at your neighbors lately? ZZZzzz...

Compared the fall of the US to the fall of the Roman Empire? Well hardly.
I think I've made one or two comparisons with the decline of the BRITISH Empire, a completely different organism (incase you didn't know).

'Now now we really all need to cut Halo some slack. I't can't be easy trying to take on an air of superiority while sittng firmly as a part the Ninetenth's century's also ran's.'

- That doesn't even make sense.

For what it's worth, I've made similar comparisons. The leaders of the US would do well to study the downfall of other empires, and the follies of colonialism and an overextended military.