I Was Looking A Long While

for too long i have been bruised seeing democracy a wondrous diamond crushed - by whatever means they could - dented, and if they could, bend to their whims under their heavy cloak of religion plundering, killing, raping, in the name of an open world the rights of which they draw their own lines for too long i have been bruised seeing democracy a wondrous first rate horse kicked, beaten, cut out to serve the greediest of despots for too long democracy has become the most convenient way to lay abuse when you have a country, power, greed and a legion of devils who die to share your cake democracy automatically becomes a dirty word I was Looking A Long While I WAS looking a long while for a clue to the history of the past for myself, and for these chants-and now I have found it; It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither accept nor reject ;) It is no more in the legends than in all else; It is in the present-it is this earth to-day; It is in Democracy-(the purport and aim of all the past ;) It is the life of one man or one woman to-day-the average man of to-day; It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts; It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery, politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of nations, All for the average man of to-day. Walt Whitman