The Ghost Of The New World

'_There are no ghosts in America._' There are no ghosts, you say, To haunt her blaze of light; No shadows in her day, No phantoms in her night. Columbus' tattered sail Has passed beyond our hail. What? On that magic coast, Where Raleigh fought with fate, Or where that Devon ghost Unbarred the Golden Gate, No dark, strange, ear-ringed men Beat in from sea again? No ghosts in Salem town With silver buckled shoon? No lovely witch to drown Or burn beneath the moon? Not even a whiff of tea, On Boston's glimmering quay. O, ghostly Spanish walls, Where brown Franciscans glide, Is there no voice that calls Across the Great Divide, To pilgrims on their way Along the Santa Fe? Then let your Pullman cars Go roaring to the West, Till, watched by lonelier stars, The cactus lifts its crest. There, on that painted plain, One ghost will rise again. Majestic and forlorn, Wreck of a dying race, The Red Man, half in scorn, Shall raise his haughty face, Inscrutable as the sky, To watch our ghosts go by. What? Is earth dreaming still? Shall not the night disgorge The ghosts of Bunker Hill The ghosts of Valley Forge, Or, England's mightiest son, The ghost of Washington? No ghosts where Lincoln fell? No ghosts for seeing eyes? I know an old cracked bell Shall make ten million rise When one immortal ghost Calls to the slumbering host.