If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show, ’Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless prairies--nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado, Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing, Nor Oregon’s white cones--nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes--nor Mississippi’s stream: --This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name--the still small voice vibrating--America’s choosing day, (The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the main, the quadriennial choosing,) The stretch of North and South arous’d--sea-board and inland-- Texas to Maine--the Prairie States--Vermont, Virginia, California, The final ballot-shower from East to West--the paradox and conflict, The countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless conflict, Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the peaceful choice of all, Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker odds, the dross: --Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify--while the heart pants, life glows: These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships, Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.