Leaves of Grass (1860)/To The States, to Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad

by Walt Whitman

Layout 2

To The States,

To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Prefidentiad.

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 a while 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.)