A great poem is for ages and ages in common, and for all degrees and complexions, and all departments and sects, and for a woman as much as a man and a man as much as a woman.  A great poem is no finish to a man or woman but rather a beginning.  Has any one fancied he could sit at last under some due authority and rest satisfied with explanations and realize and be content and full?  To no such terminus does the greatest poet bring ... he brings neither cessation or sheltered fatness and ease.  The touch of him tells in action.  Whom he takes he takes with firm sure grasp into live regions previously unattained ... thenceforward is no rest ... they see the space and ineffable sheen that turn the old spots and lights into dead vacuums.  The companion of him beholds the birth and progress of stars and learns one of the meanings.  Now there shall be a man cohered out of tumult and chaos ... the elder encourages the younger and shows him how ... they too shall launch off fearlessly together till the new world fits an orbit for itself and looks unabashed on the lesser orbits of the stars and sweeps through the ceaseless rings and shall never be quiet again.

There will soon be no more priests.  Their work is done.  They may wait awhile ... perhaps a generation or two ... dropping off by degrees.  A superior breed shall take their place ... the gangs of kosmos and prophets en masse shall take their place.  A new order shall arise and they shall be the priests of man, and every man shall be his own priest.  The churches built under their umbrage shall be the churches of men and women.  Through the divinity of themselves shall the kosmos and the new breed of poets be interpreters of men and women and of all events and things.  They shall find their inspiration in real objects to-day, symptoms of the past and future....  They shall not deign to defend immortality or God or the perfection of things or liberty or the exquisite beauty and reality of the soul.  They shall arise in America and be responded to from the remainder of the earth.

The English language befriends the grand American expression ... it is brawny enough and limber and full enough ... on the tough stock of a race who through all change of circumstance was never without the idea of political liberty, which is the animus of all liberty, it has attracted the terms of daintier and gayer and subtler and more elegant tongues.  It is the powerful language of resistance ... it is the dialect of common sense.  It is the speech of the proud and melancholy races and of all who aspire.  It is the chosen tongue to express growth faith self-esteem freedom justice equality friendliness amplitude prudence decision and courage.  It is the medium that shall well nigh express the inexpressible.