The Poetry Corner

To The States

By Walt Whitman

Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing? What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters! Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol? What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!) Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President? Then I will sleep awhile yet for I see that These States sleep, for reasons; (With gathering murk with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake, South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)