To The States, to Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad

Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and alldrowsing?What deepening twilight! Scum floating atop of thewaters!Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in theCapitol?

What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torridsuns! O north, your arctic freezings!)Are those really Congressmen? Are those the greatJudges? Is that the President?Then I will sleep a while yet—for I see that TheseStates sleep, for reasons;(With gathering murk—with muttering thunder andlambent shoots, we all duly awake,South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we willsurely awake.)