The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties,

Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,

So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.

[Pg 6]

[Pg 6]

CITY OF SHIPS

City of ships!

(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!

O the beautiful sharp-bow'd steam-ships and sail-ships!)

City of the world! (for all races are here,

All the lands of the earth make contributions here);

City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!

City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out with eddies and foam!

City of wharves and stores—city of tall façades of marble and iron!

Proud and passionate city—mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!

Spring up O city—not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike!

Fear not—submit to no models but your own, O city!

Behold me—incarnate me as I have incarnated you!

I have rejected nothing you offer'd me—whom you adopted I have adopted,

Good or bad I never question you—I love all—I do not condemn anything,


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