Flag of Stars, Thick-Sprinkled Bunting
by Walt Whitman
· 1867
Published 01/07/1867
FLAG of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!
Long yet your road, fateful flag!—long yet your road, and lined with bloody death!
For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world!
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner!
—Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest borne, to flaunt unrivall'd?
O hasten, flag of man! O with sure and steady step, passing highest flags of kings,
Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol—run up above them all,
Flag of stars! thick sprinkled bunting!