Years of the Modern

 YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform’d! 
Your horizon rises—I see it parting away for more august dramas; 
I see not America only—I see not only Liberty’s nation, but other nations
 preparing; 
I see tremendous entrances and exits—I see new combinations—I see the solidarity
 of
 races; 
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage;
(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts suitable to them
 closed?) 
I see Freedom, completely arm’d, and victorious, and very haughty, with Law on one
 side,
 and Peace on the other, 
A stupendous Trio, all issuing forth against the idea of caste; 
—What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach? 
I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions;
I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken; 
I see the landmarks of European kings removed; 
I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give way;) 
—Never were such sharp questions ask’d as this day; 
Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God;
Lo! how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest; 
His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere—he colonizes the Pacific, the
 archipelagoes;

With the steam-ship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the wholesale engines of war, 
With these, and the world-spreading factories, he interlinks all geography, all lands; 
—What whispers are these, O lands, running ahead of you, passing under the seas?
Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe? 
Is humanity forming, en-masse?—for lo! tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim; 
The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war; 
No one knows what will happen next—such portents fill the days and nights; 
Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to pierce it, is full of
 phantoms;
Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me; 
This incredible rush and heat—this strange extatic fever of dreams, O years! 
Your dreams, O year, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I sleep or wake!) 
The perform’d America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me, 
The unperform’d, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me.

Biography | Poems | Best Poems | Short Poems | Quotes | Email Poem |

Poems are below...