follow copy—punctuation &c

If I should need to name, O Western World!

Presidential canvass and pending Election, 1884.

If I should need to name, O Western World!
your powerfulest scene to-day,

'T would not be you, Niagara—nor you, ye
limitless prairies—nor your huge
rifts of cañons, Colorado,

Nor you, Yosemite, with all your spasmic
geyser‑loops ascending to the skies, ap-
pearing 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 preparing—
America's choosing day,

(The heart of it not in the chosen—the act
itself the main, the great quad[illegible] quadrennial
choosing,)

The stretch of nNorth and sSouth arouse'd—
sea‑board and inland—Texas to Maine,

The Prairie States, Vermont, Virginia, Cali-
fornia,

The final ballot‑shower from eEast to wWest—
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;)

Or good or ill _^humanity——welcoming the darker odds,
the dross, the scene's debris—:

Foams and ferments the wine? it is serves to puri-
fy—while the heart pants, life glows;

These stormy gusts and winds waft precious
ships,

Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

Walt Whitman

Camden, N.J., Oct. 25, 1884.

to go in Sunday's paper Oct 26

put in type & send me a proof, by mail—direct 328 Mickle Street Camden—(send proofs by Wednesday 22 if convenient) [I will return immediately?]

[cut away] bearer one proof for me

Whitman