Come! United States of America,
And you one hundred million souls, O Republic,
Throw out your chests, lift up your heads,
And walk with a soldier’s stride.
Quit burning up for money alone.
Quit slouching and dawdling,
And dreaming and moralising.
Quit idling about the streets, like the boy
In the village, who pines for the city.
Root out the sinister secret societies,
And the clans that stick together for office,
And the good men who care nothing for liberty,
But would run you, O Republic, as a household is run.
It is time, Republic, to get some class,
It is time to harden your muscles,
And to clear your eyes in the cold water of Reality,
And to tighten your nerves.
It is time to think what Nature means,
And to consult Nature,
When your soul, as you call it, calls to you
To follow principle!
It is time to snuff out the A. D. Bloods.
It is time to lift yourself, O Republic,
From the street corners of Spoon River.

Do you wish to survive,
And to count in the years to come?
Then do what the plow-boys did in sixty-one,
Who left the fields for the camp,
And tightened their nerves and hardened their arms
Till the day they left the camp for the fields
The bravest, readiest, clearest-eyed
Straight-walking men in the world,
And symbolical of a Republic
That is worthy the name!

If you, Republic, had kept the faith
Of a culture all your own,
And a spiritual independence,
And a freedom large and new.
If you had not set up a Federal judge in China,
And scrambled for place in the Orient,
And stolen the Philippine Islands,
And mixed in the business of Europe,
Three thousand miles of water east,
And seven thousand west
Had kept your hands untainted, free
For a culture all your own!
But while you were fumbling, and while you were dreaming
As the boy in the village dreams of the city
You were doing something worse:
You were imitating!
You came to the city and aped the swells,
And tried to enter their set!
You strained your Fate to their fate,
And borrowed the mood to live their life!
And here you are in the game, Republic,
But not prepared to play!

But you did it.
And the water east and water west
Are no longer your safeguard:
They are now your danger and difficulty!
And you must live the life you started to imitate
In spite of these perilous waters.
For they keep you now from being neutral—
For you are not neutral, Republic,
You only pretend to be.
You are not free, independent, brave,
You are shackled, cowardly
For what could happen to you overnight
In the Orient,
If you stood with your shoulders up,
And were Neutral!

Suppose you do it, Republic.
Get some class,
Throw out your chest, lift up your head,
Be a ruler in the world,
And not a hermit in regimentals with a flint-lock.
Colossus with one foot in Europe,
And one in China,
Quit looking between your legs for the re-appearance
Of the star of Bethlehem—
Stand up and be a man!