after the lightning--how bright the
flashes of lightning!
How Democracy with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through
the dark by those flashes of lightning!
(Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.)

3

Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet O storms! you have done me good,
My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal strong
nutriment,
Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads through farms, only half
satisfied,
One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground
before me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing
low;
The cities I loved so well I abandon'd and left, I sped to the
certainties suitable to me,
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies and Nature's
dauntlessness,
I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only,
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I
waited long;
But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am glutted,
I have witness'd the true lightning, I have witness'd my cities
electric,
I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike America rise,
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea.

* * * * *

THE END

[Illustration]

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note

The following changes have been made to the text:

Page 121: "Agagin the deathless grass" changed to "Again the deathless
grass".

Page 185: "saw in dreams you" changed to "saw in dreams your".

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Walt Whitman

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