To The East And To The West

A poem by Walt Whitman

To the East and to the West;
To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania,
To the Kanadian of the North, to the Southerner I love;
These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself, the germs are in all men;
I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb friendship, exalté, previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.