America's Choosing Day- November 4, 2008

From The Leaves of Grass (1882)
by Walt Whitman

Election Day 1884

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 geyserloops 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 quadrennial 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.