By anonymous

IMPERIALISMS.

The slow and steady ages plodding, the unoccupied surface ripening,
the rich ores forming beneath;
At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,
A swarming and busy race settling and organizing everywhere,
Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the
whole world, the beginning of the end
To India and China and Australia and the thousand island paradises of
the Pacific, Paradise Lost in modernity’s mandibles
Populous cities, the latest inventions, the steamers on the rivers, the
railroads, with many a thrifty farm, with machinery,
And wool and wheat and the grape, and diggings of yellow gold.

Free Palestine.
Free Massachusetts.
Free Paradise.

But more in you than these, lands of the Western shore,
(These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,)
I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years, till
now deferr’d, your dream, deferred, is another denied.
Promis’d to be fulfill’d, our common kind, the race.
The new society at last, proportionate to Nature,
In man of you, more than your mountain peaks or stalwart trees imperial,
In woman more, far more, than all your gold or vines, or even vital air.
world not new, nor made for you
Fresh come, to a new world indeed, yet long prepared,
I see the genius of the modern, child of the real and ideal,
Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the
past so grand, whose ground do you clear?
To build a grander future.

There’s always tomorrow.
There’s always something left to lose.
In the dream where I am an island,
drying off on a rock in the middle
of a man-made lake
I grow green with hope. I’d like to end there.