Public-domain source text

What Best I See in Thee

by Walt Whitman

From Standard Ebooks · standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass

To U. S. G. return’d from his World’s Tour
What best I see in thee, Is not that where thou mov’st down history’s great highways, Ever undimm’d by time shoots warlike victory’s dazzle, Or that thou sat’st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace, Or thou the man whom feudal Europe fêted, venerable Asia swarm’d upon, Who walk’d with kings with even pace the round world’s promenade; But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings, Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio’s, Indiana’s millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front, Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round world’s promenade, Were all so justified.

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This is a source transcription from Standard Ebooks, published in Past Poetry’s public-domain archive without line-by-line editorial notes. Public-domain source edition. Availability can vary by territory.

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