O SUN OF REAL PEACE
Walt Whitman
O SUN of real peace! O hastening light!
O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble
for!
O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take
his height—and you too, O my Ideal, will surely
ascend!
O so amazing and broad—up there resplendent, dart-
ing and burning!
O vision prophetic, stagger'd with weight of light! with
pouring glories!
O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless!
O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the
war is over!
New history! new heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep
on!
O heights too swift and dizzy yet!
O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I
can stand!
(I must not venture—the ground under my feet men-
aces me—it will not support me:
O future too immense,)—O present, I return, while yet
I may, to you.