America / Walt Whitman

from Sands at Seventy

America

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love, 

A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother, 

Chair’d in the adamant of Time.

~~
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
from November Boughs, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Walt Whitman biography

Walt Whitman reads from "America". Courtesy awtblackbough.