Exhibition Addresses. 103 



ADDRESSES AT THE EXHIBITION OF 1871. 



The exhibition of 1871 was opened with an address by the Hon. 

 E. G. Squier. A copy of the author's manuscript used on this 

 occasion has not been received. The following poem was recited by 

 its author, Walt Whitman, Esq. : 



AFTER ALL, NOT TO CREATE ONLY. 



I. 



After all, not to create only, or found only, 



But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded, 



To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free ; 



To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital religious fire ; 



Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate ; 



To obey, as well as command — to follow, more than to lead ; 



These also are the lessons of our New World ; 



—While how little the New, after all— haw much the Old, Old World ! 



Long, long, long, has the grass been growing, . 

 Long and long has the rain been falling, 

 Long has the globe been rolling round. 



II. 



Come, Muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia ; 



Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts, 



That matter of Troy, and Achilles' wrath, and Eneas', Odysseus' wanderings ; 



Placard " Bemoved" and " To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus ; 



Repeat at Jerusalem — place the notice high on Jaffa's gate, and on Mount Moriah ; 



The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German, French 



and Spanish Castles ; 

 For know, a better, fresher, busier sphere — a wide, untried domain awaits, demands 



you. 



III. 

 Responsive to our summons, 

 Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination, 

 Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation, 



