Not quadrienial, but the midterms are still America's choosing day:\n
Election Day, November, 1884, by Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass<\/I>, Book XXXIV: Sands at Seventy.\n
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
\n'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless prairies--nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
\nNor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
\nNor Oregon's white cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes--nor Mississippi's stream:
\n--This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name--the still small voice vibrating--America's choosing day,
\n(The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the main, the quadriennial choosing,)
\nThe stretch of North and South arous'd--sea-board and inland--
\nTexas to Maine--the Prairie States--Vermont, Virginia, California,
\nThe final ballot-shower from East to West--the paradox and conflict,
\nThe countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless conflict,
\nYet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
\nOr good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
\n--Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify--while the heart pants, life glows:
\nThese stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
\nSwell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.
\n<\/blockquote>\n