As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days Walt Whitman

As I walk these broad majestic days of peace
(For the war, the struggle of blood finish'd, wherein, O terrific Ideal
Against vast odds erewhile having gloriously won
Now thou stridest on, yet perhaps in time toward denser wars
Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers
Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others,)
Around me I hear that eclat of the world, politics, produce
The announcements of recognized things, science
The approved growth of cities and the spread of inventions

I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)
The vast factories with their foremen and workmen
And hear the indorsement of all, and do not object to it

But I too announce solid things
Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing
Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles pouring
Triumphantly moving, and grander heaving in sight
They stand for realities—all is as it should be

Then my realities;
What else is so real as mine?
Libertad and the divine average, freedom to every slave on the face of the earth
The rapt promises and luminé of seers, the spiritual world, these centuries-lasting songs
And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any