Election Day, November, 1884

Walt Whitman

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
      geyser-loops 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
      quadriennial 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.