Stanza 1

It is early morning, and the sun has risen. Using topographic imagery of mountains, lakes, and plains, the speaker invokes great swaths of American territory. This includes the Great Smoky Mountains (abbreviated to “Smokies” [Line 2]), a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains that rises along the Tennessee-North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. Then, he invokes the “Great Lakes” (Line 3); these are Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, which are mostly on or near the Canada-US border, touching on eight states. The “Great Plains” (Line 4) stretch across the central United States and cover in part or all 13 states, and “the Rockies” (Line 4), referring to the Rocky Mountains, the largest mountain range in the country, can be found in the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. The poem’s theme of unity begins in these lines, hinted at by the first line, “One sun rose on us today” (Line 1); the same sun shines on everyone. The last two lines of this stanza home in on the human world as the day begins in the US, indicating that this is to be a poem about the American people.