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

229. Mediums

THEY shall arise in the States,

They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness;

They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;

They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive;

They shall be complete women and men—their pose brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear;

They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products—they shall enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago, the great city;

They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and oratresses;

Strong and sweet shall their tongues be—poems and materials of poems shall come from their lives—they shall be makers and finders;

Of them, and of their works, shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey gospels;

Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey’d in gospels

—Trees, animals, waters, shall be convey’d,

Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey’d.