Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials, America brings builders, and brings its own styles.
The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work and pass’d to other spheres, A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.
America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards, Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound, initiates the true use of precedents, Does not repel them or the past or what they have produced under their forms, Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the house, Perceives that it waits a little while in the door, that it was fittest for its days, That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches, And that he shall be fittest for his days.