For I too raising my voice join the ranks of this pageant, I am the chanter, I chant aloud over the pageant, I chant the world on my Western sea, I chant copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky, I chant the new empire grander than any before, as in a vision it comes to me, I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy, I chant projected a thousand blooming cities yet in time on those groups of sea-islands, My sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes, My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind, Commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work, races reborn, refresh’d, Lives, works resumed⁠—the object I know not⁠—but the old, the Asiatic renew’d as it must be, Commencing from this day surrounded by the world.