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.