Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.
145. Lo! Victress on the Peaks
L
Where thou, with mighty brow, regarding the world,
(The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee;)
Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all;
Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee,
Flauntest now unharm’d, in immortal soundness and bloom—lo! in these hours supreme,
No poem proud, I, chanting, bring to thee—nor mastery’s rapturous verse;
But a book, containing night’s darkness, and blood-dripping wounds,
And psalms of the dead.