Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/410

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402
Leaves of Grass.

To a President.

All you are doing and saying is to America dangled
mirages,
You have not learned of Nature—of the politics of
Nature, you have not learned the great amplitude,
rectitude, impartiality.
You have not seen that only such as they are for
These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later
lift off from These States.

To other Lands.

I hear you have been asking for something to represent
the new race, our self-poised Democracy,
Therefore I send you my poems, that you behold in
them what you wanted.

To Old Age.

I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads
itself grandly as it pours in the great sea.