Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass. 21. Drum-Taps. 22. Long, Too Long America

Long, too long America,
Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and
      prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing,
      grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,
And now to conceive and show to the world what your children
      en-masse really are,
(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse
      really are?)