LO, VICTRESS ON THE PEAKS.
Walt Whitman
Lo, Victress on the peaks,
Where thou with mighty brow regarding the world,
(The world O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee,)
Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all,
Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee,
Flauntest now unharm'd in immortal soundness and bloom--lo, in these
hours supreme,
No poem proud, I chanting bring to thee, nor mastery's rapturous
verse,
But a cluster containing night's darkness and blood-dripping wounds,
And psalms of the dead.