To BRYANT, the Poet of Nature Walt Whitman

Let Glory diadem the mighty dead—
Let monuments of brass and marble rise
To those who have upon our being shed
A golden halo, borrowed from the skies,
And given to time its most enduring prize;
For they but little less than angels were:
But not to thee, oh! nature's OWN, we should
(When from this clod the minstrel-soul aspires
And joins the glorious band of purer lyres)
Tall columns build: thy monument is here—
For ever fixed in its eternity—
A monument God-built! 'Tis seen around—
In mountains huge and many gliding streams—
Where'er the torrent lifts a melancholy sound,
Or modest flower in broad savannah gleams