Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

129. Long, too Long, O Land!

LONG, too long, O land,

Traveling roads all even and peaceful, you learn’d from joys and prosperity only;

But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish—advancing, grappling with direst fate, and recoiling not;

And now to conceive, and show to the world, what your children en-masse really are;

(For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en-masse really are?)