4.
Superb-faced Manhattan!
Comrade Americanos!--to us, then, at last, the Orient comes.
To us, my city,
Where our tall-topped marble and iron beauties range on opposite sides--to
walk in the space between,
To-day our Antipodes comes.
The Originatress comes,
The land of Paradise--land of the Caucasus--the nest of birth,
The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
The race of Brahma comes!
See, my cantabile! these, and more, are flashing to us from the procession;
As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.
Not the errand-bearing princes, nor the tanned Japanee only;
Lithe and silent, the Hindoo appears--the whole Asiatic continent itself
appears--the Past, the dead,
The murky night-morning of wonder and fable, inscrutable,
The enveloped mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees,
The North--the sweltering South--Assyria--the Hebrews--the Ancient of
ancients,
Vast desolated cities--the gliding Present--all of these, and more, are in
the pageant-procession.
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