A Poem for Election Day by Our Great-Uncle Walt Whitman

Here's a link to a Boston Globe article written by BU professor and former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky about Walt Whitman's poem "Election Day, November, 1884". (I wonder what the conversation between Stephen Dedalus and the speaker of this poem would be like. The former wanting to fly above the political nets and skeptical of the wisdom of the "rabble" (cf. Joyce's The Day of Rabblement). The later glorying in the power of choosing one's leaders. The former perhaps overly cynical and more than a bit anti-social though still idealistic. The later perhaps overly naive and more than a bit optimistic though still recognizing the real divisions within a populace. Hm... Happy Election Day to All!!!

Here's the poem:

ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,

'Twould not be you, Niagara - nor you, ye limitless prairies - nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,

Nor you, Yosemite - nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,

Nor Oregon's white cones - nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes - nor Mississippi's stream:

This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name - the still small voice vibrating -America's choosing day,

(The heart of it not in the chosen - the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)

The stretch of North and South arous'd - sea-board and inland - Texas to Maine - the Prairie States - Vermont, Virginia, California,

The final ballot-shower from East to West - the paradox and conflict,

The countless snow-flakes falling - (a swordless conflict,

Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's): the peaceful choice of all,

Or good or ill humanity - welcoming the darker odds, the dross:

- Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify - while the heart pants, life glows:

These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,

Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.