America to Old-World Bards

A reminiscence from reading Walter Scott

The The [Am?] [qu?] imported ancient ballad reciting, ending

Once, America, gazing I gazing toward thee, _^Mother of all,

Musing, seeking as ever the themes of thee,

Thank _^well for me, thou saidst, before thou goest
the old bards

Speak Name out the word for me acknowledging each
ancient past gone singers.r.

I too receive them with perfect hospitality.

Well-pleased, accepting all, _^curiously prepared for,

(Of many depbts incalculable

Haply the _^New World's chiefest debts debt
is to past poets ? poems.)

Unwittingly for thee _^Far back Preluding thee, _^America America,

First Egyp chants, Egyptian priests and those of
Ethiopia

The Hindu epics, the Grecian, the Chinese, and the
Persian,

The Biblic books and prophets, the beauteous
deep idylls of the Nazarene,

The Iliad, Odyssey, _^plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas,

Hesiod Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur,

These as a mighty great As some great shadowy group, _^gathering around

Launching, long-darting, Darting m a their mighty
many crowding masterful eyes _^forward at thee

Thee Thou, with _^as now thy ben thy thy bending head [an?]
neck and head
with courteous hand & workd word

[paus?]
pausing

Thee Thou, as pausing for a moment, _^ bending thine drop'st thine eyes
observing on them, _^the past enteresting at
thy entrance-porch.

Preluding thee America