LG1855	1	I CELEBRATE myself,
LG1855	2	And what I assume you shall assume,
LG1855	3	For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
LG1855	4	I loafe and invite my soul,
LG1855	5	I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer grass.
LG1855	6	Houses and rooms are full of perfumes . . . . the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
LG1855	7	I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it,
LG1855	8	The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
LG1855	9	The atmosphere is not a perfume . . . . it has no taste of the distillation . . . . it is odorless,
LG1855	10	It is for my mouth forever . . . . I am in love with it,
LG1855	11	I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
LG1855	12	I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
LG1855	13	The smoke of my own breath,
LG1855	14	Echos, ripples, and buzzed whispers . . . . loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine,
LG1855	15	My respiration and inspiration . . . . the beating of my heart . . . . the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
LG1855	16	The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and darkcolored sea-rockssea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
LG1855	17	The sound of the belched words of my voice . . . . words loosed to the eddies of the wind,
LG1855	18	A few light kisses . . . . a few embraces . . . . a reaching around of arms,
LG1855	19	The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
LG1855	20	The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hillsides,
LG1855	21	The feeling of health . . . . the full-noon trill . . . . the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
LG1855	22	Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much?
LG1855	23	Have you practiced so long to learn to read?
LG1855	24	Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
LG1855	25	Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
LG1855	26	You shall possess the good of the earth and sun . . . . there are millions of suns left,
LG1855	27	You shall no longer take things at second or third hand . . . . nor look through the eyes of the dead . . . . nor feed on the spectres in books,
LG1855	28	You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
LG1855	29	You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.
LG1855	30	I have heard what the talkers were talking . . . . the talk of the beginning and the end,
LG1855	31	But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
LG1855	32	There was never any more inception than there is now,
LG1855	33	Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
LG1855	34	And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
LG1855	35	Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
LG1855	36	Urge and urge and urge,
LG1855	37	Always the procreant urge of the world.
LG1855	38	Out of the dimness opposite equals advance . . . . Always substance and increase,
LG1855	39	Always a knit of identity . . . . always distinction . . . . always a breed of life.
LG1855	40	To elaborate is no avail . . . . Learned and unlearned feel that it is so.
LG1855	41	Sure as the most certain sure . . . . plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams,
LG1855	42	Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
LG1855	43	I and this mystery here we stand.
LG1855	44	Clear and sweet is my soul . . . . and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
LG1855	45	Lack one lacks both . . . . and the unseen is proved by the seen,
LG1855	46	Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
LG1855	47	Showing the best and dividing it from the worst, age vexes age,
LG1855	48	Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
LG1855	49	Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,
LG1855	50	Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.
LG1855	51	I am satisfied . . . . I see, dance, laugh, sing;
LG1855	52	As God comes a loving bedfellow and sleeps at my side all night and close on the peep of the day,
LG1855	53	And leaves for me baskets covered with white towels bulging the house with their plenty,
LG1855	54	Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,
LG1855	55	That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
LG1855	56	And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
LG1855	57	Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is ahead?
LG1855	58	Trippers and askers surround me,
LG1855	59	People I meet . . . . . the effect upon me of my early life . . . . of the ward and city I live in . . . . of the nation,
LG1855	60	The latest news . . . . discoveries, inventions, societies . . . . authors old and new,
LG1855	61	My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business, compliments, dues,
LG1855	62	The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
LG1855	63	The sickness of one of my folks—or of myself . . . . or ill-doing . . . . or loss or lack of money . . . . or depressions or exaltations,
LG1855	64	They come to me days and nights and go from me again,
LG1855	65	But they are not the Me myself.
LG1855	66	Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
LG1855	67	Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
LG1855	68	Looks down, is erect, bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
LG1855	69	Looks with its sidecurved head curious what will come next,
LG1855	70	Both in and out of the game, and watching and wondering at it.
LG1855	71	Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
LG1855	72	I have no mockings or arguments . . . . I witness and wait.
LG1855	73	I believe in you my soul . . . . the other I am must not abase itself to you,
LG1855	74	And you must not be abased to the other.
LG1855	75	Loafe with me on the grass . . . . loose the stop from your throat,
LG1855	76	Not words, not music or rhyme I want . . . . not custom or lecture, not even the best,
LG1855	77	Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
LG1855	78	I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent summer morning;
LG1855	79	You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me,
LG1855	80	And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart,
LG1855	81	And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.
LG1855	82	Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth;
LG1855	83	And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own,
LG1855	84	And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,
LG1855	85	And that all the men ever born are also my brothers . . . . and the women my sisters and lovers,
LG1855	86	And that a kelson of the creation is love;
LG1855	87	And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
LG1855	88	And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
LG1855	89	And mossy scabs of the wormfence, and heaped stones, and elder and mullen and pokeweed.
LG1855	90	A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
LG1855	91	How could I answer the child? . . . . I do not know what it is any more than he.
LG1855	92	I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
LG1855	93	Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
LG1855	94	A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
LG1855	95	Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
LG1855	96	Or I guess the grass is itself a child . . . . the produced babe of the vegetation.
LG1855	97	Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
LG1855	98	And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
LG1855	99	Growing among black folks as among white,
LG1855	100	Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
LG1855	101	And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
LG1855	102	Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
LG1855	103	It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
LG1855	104	It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
LG1855	105	It may be you are from old people and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,
LG1855	106	And here you are the mothers' laps.
LG1855	107	This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
LG1855	108	Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
LG1855	109	Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
LG1855	110	O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
LG1855	111	And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
LG1855	112	I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
LG1855	113	And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
LG1855	114	What do you think has become of the young and old men?
LG1855	115	And what do you think has become of the women and children?
LG1855	116	They are alive and well somewhere;
LG1855	117	The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
LG1855	118	And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
LG1855	119	And ceased the moment life appeared.
LG1855	120	All goes onward and outward . . . . and nothing collapses,
LG1855	121	And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
LG1855	122	Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
LG1855	123	I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
LG1855	124	I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe . . . . and am not contained between my hat and boots,
LG1855	125	And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good,
LG1855	126	The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
LG1855	127	I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
LG1855	128	I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself;
LG1855	129	They do not know how immortal, but I know.
LG1855	130	Every kind for itself and its own . . . . for me mine male and female,
LG1855	131	For me all that have been boys and that love women,
LG1855	132	For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
LG1855	133	For me the sweetheart and the old maid . . . . for me mothers and the mothers of mothers,
LG1855	134	For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
LG1855	135	For me children and the begetters of children.
LG1855	136	Who need be afraid of the merge?
LG1855	137	Undrape . . . . you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
LG1855	138	I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
LG1855	139	And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless . . . . and can never be shaken away.
LG1855	140	The little one sleeps in its cradle,
LG1855	141	I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.
LG1855	142	The youngster and the redfaced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
LG1855	143	I peeringly view them from the top.
LG1855	144	The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom,
LG1855	145	It is so . . . . I witnessed the corpse . . . . there the pistol had fallen.
LG1855	146	The blab of the pave . . . . the tires of carts and sluff of bootsoles and talk of the promenaders,
LG1855	147	The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
LG1855	148	The carnival of sleighs, the clinking and shouted jokes and pelts of snowballs;
LG1855	149	The hurrahs for popular favorites . . . . the fury of roused mobs,
LG1855	150	The flap of the curtained litter—the sick man inside, borne to the hospital,
LG1855	151	The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
LG1855	152	The excited crowd—the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd;
LG1855	153	The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
LG1855	154	The souls moving along . . . . are they invisible while the least atom of the stones is visible?
LG1855	155	What groans of overfed or half-starved who fall on the flags sunstruck or in fits,
LG1855	156	What exclamations of women taken suddenly, who hurry home and give birth to babes,
LG1855	157	What living and buried speech is always vibrating here . . . . what howls restrained by decorum,
LG1855	158	Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances, rejections with convex lips,
LG1855	159	I mind them or the resonance of them . . . . I come again and again.
LG1855	160	The big doors of the country-barn stand open and ready,
LG1855	161	The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
LG1855	162	The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
LG1855	163	The armfuls are packed to the sagging mow:
LG1855	164	I am there . . . . I help . . . . I came stretched atop of the load,
LG1855	165	I felt its soft jolts . . . . one leg reclined on the other,
LG1855	166	I jump from the crossbeams, and seize the clover and timothy,
LG1855	167	And roll head over heels, and tangle my hair full of wisps.
LG1855	168	Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
LG1855	169	Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
LG1855	170	In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
LG1855	171	Kindling a fire and broiling the freshkilled game,
LG1855	172	Soundly falling asleep on the gathered leaves, my dog and gun by my side.
LG1855	173	The Yankee clipper is under her three skysails . . . . she cuts the sparkle and scud,
LG1855	174	My eyes settle the land . . . . I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.
LG1855	175	The boatmen and clamdiggers arose early and stopped for me,
LG1855	176	I tucked my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time,
LG1855	177	You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.
LG1855	178	I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far-west . . . . the bride was a red girl,
LG1855	179	Her father and his friends sat near by crosslegged and dumbly smoking . . . . they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders;
LG1855	180	On a bank lounged the trapper . . . . he was dressed mostly in skins . . . . his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck,
LG1855	181	One hand rested on his rifle . . . . the other hand held firmly the wrist of the red girl,
LG1855	182	She had long eyelashes . . . . her head was bare . . . . her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reached to her feet.
LG1855	183	The runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside,
LG1855	184	I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
LG1855	185	Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsey and weak,
LG1855	186	And went where he sat on a log, and led him in and assured him,
LG1855	187	And brought water and filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet,
LG1855	188	And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,
LG1855	189	And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
LG1855	190	And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
LG1855	191	He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north,
LG1855	192	I had him sit next me at table . . . . my firelock leaned in the corner.
LG1855	193	Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
LG1855	194	Twenty-eight young men, and all so friendly,
LG1855	195	Twenty-eight years of womanly life, and all so lonesome.
LG1855	196	She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
LG1855	197	She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.
LG1855	198	Which of the young men does she like the best?
LG1855	199	Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.
LG1855	200	Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
LG1855	201	You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.
LG1855	202	Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
LG1855	203	The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.
LG1855	204	The beards of the young men glistened with wet, it ran from their long hair,
LG1855	205	Little streams passed all over their bodies.
LG1855	206	An unseen hand also passed over their bodies,
LG1855	207	It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.
LG1855	208	The young men float on their backs, their white bellies swell to the sun . . . . they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
LG1855	209	They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch,
LG1855	210	They do not think whom they souse with spray.
LG1855	211	The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market,
LG1855	212	I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and breakdown.
LG1855	213	Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
LG1855	214	Each has his main-sledge . . . . they are all out . . . . there is a great heat in the fire.
LG1855	215	From the cinder-strewed threshold I follow their movements,
LG1855	216	The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
LG1855	217	Overhand the hammers roll—overhand so slow—overhand so sure,
LG1855	218	They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.
LG1855	219	The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses . . . . the block swags underneath on its tied-over chain,
LG1855	220	The negro that drives the huge dray of the stoneyard . . . . steady and tall he stands poised on one leg on the stringpiece,
LG1855	221	His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hipband,
LG1855	222	His glance is calm and commanding . . . . he tosses the slouch of his hat away from his forehead,
LG1855	223	The sun falls on his crispy hair and moustache . . . . falls on the black of his polish'd and perfect limbs.
LG1855	224	I behold the picturesque giant and love him . . . . and I do not stop there,
LG1855	225	I go with the team also.
LG1855	226	In me the caresser of life wherever moving . . . . backward as well as forward slue-ingslueing,
LG1855	227	To niches aside and junior bending.
LG1855	228	Oxen that rattle the yoke or halt in the shade, what is that you express in your eyes?
LG1855	229	It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.
LG1855	230	My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and daylong ramble,
LG1855	231	They rise together, they slowly circle around.
LG1855	232	. . . . I believe in those winged purposes,
LG1855	233	And acknowledge the red yellow and white playing within me,
LG1855	234	And consider the green and violet and the tufted crown intentional;
LG1855	235	And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else,
LG1855	236	And the mockingbird in the swamp never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well to me,
LG1855	237	And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.
LG1855	238	The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,
LG1855	239	Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation;
LG1855	240	The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer,
LG1855	241	I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.
LG1855	242	The sharphoofed moose of the north, the cat on the housesill, the chickadee, the prairie-dog,
LG1855	243	The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,
LG1855	244	The brood of the turkeyhen, and she with her halfspread wings,
LG1855	245	I see in them and myself the same old law.
LG1855	246	The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,
LG1855	247	They scorn the best I can do to relate them.
LG1855	248	I am enamoured of growing outdoors,
LG1855	249	Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,
LG1855	250	Of the builders and steerers of ships, of the wielders of axes and mauls, of the drivers of horses,
LG1855	251	I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.
LG1855	252	What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me,
LG1855	253	Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
LG1855	254	Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,
LG1855	255	Not asking the sky to come down to my goodwill,
LG1855	256	Scattering it freely forever.
LG1855	257	The pure contralto sings in the organloft,
LG1855	258	The carpenter dresses his plank . . . . the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,
LG1855	259	The married and unmarried children ride home to their thanksgiving dinner,
LG1855	260	The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
LG1855	261	The mate stands braced in the whaleboat, lance and harpoon are ready,
LG1855	262	The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,
LG1855	263	The deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar,
LG1855	264	The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,
LG1855	265	The farmer stops by the bars of a Sunday and looks at the oats and rye,
LG1855	266	The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirmed case,
LG1855	267	He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bedroom;
LG1855	268	The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,
LG1855	269	He turns his quid of tobacco, his eyes get blurred with the manuscript;
LG1855	270	The malformed limbs are tied to the anatomist's table,
LG1855	271	What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
LG1855	272	The quadroon girl is sold at the stand . . . . the drunkard nods by the barroom stove,
LG1855	273	The machinist rolls up his sleeves . . . . the policeman travels his beat . . . . the gate-keepergatekeeper marks who pass,
LG1855	274	The young fellow drives the express-wagon . . . . I love him though I do not know him;
LG1855	275	The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,
LG1855	276	The western turkey-shooting draws old and young . . . . some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs,
LG1855	277	Out from the crowd steps the marksman and takes his position and levels his piece;
LG1855	278	The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,
LG1855	279	The woollypates hoe in the sugarfield, the overseer views them from his saddle;
LG1855	280	The bugle calls in the ballroom, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other;
LG1855	281	The youth lies awake in the cedar-roofed garret and harks to the musical rain,
LG1855	282	The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,
LG1855	283	The reformer ascends the platform, he spouts with his mouth and nose,
LG1855	284	The company returns from its excursion, the darkey brings up the rear and bears the well-riddled target,
LG1855	285	The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemmed cloth is offering moccasins and beadbags for sale,
LG1855	286	The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with halfshut eyes bent sideways,
LG1855	287	The deckhands make fast the steamboat, the plank is thrown for the shoregoing passengers,
LG1855	288	The young sister holds out the skein, the elder sister winds it off in a ball and stops now and then for the knots,
LG1855	289	The one-year wife is recovering and happy, a week ago she bore her first child,
LG1855	290	The cleanhaired Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill,
LG1855	291	The nine months' gone is in the parturition chamber, her faintness and pains are ad-vancingadvancing;
LG1855	292	The pavingman leans on his twohanded rammer—the reporter's lead flies swiftly over the notebook—the signpainter is lettering with red and gold,
LG1855	293	The canal-boy trots on the towpath—the bookkeeper counts at his desk—the shoemaker waxes his thread,
LG1855	294	The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him,
LG1855	295	The child is baptised—the convert is making the first professions,
LG1855	296	The regatta is spread on the bay . . . . how the white sails sparkle!
LG1855	297	The drover watches his drove, he sings out to them that would stray,
LG1855	298	The pedlar sweats with his pack on his back—the purchaser higgles about the odd cent,
LG1855	299	The camera and plate are prepared, the lady must sit for her daguerreotype,
LG1855	300	The bride unrumples her white dress, the minutehand of the clock moves slowly,
LG1855	301	The opium eater reclines with rigid head and just-opened lips,
LG1855	302	The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck,
LG1855	303	The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other,
LG1855	304	(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you,)
LG1855	305	The President holds a cabinet council, he is surrounded by the great secretaries,
LG1855	306	On the piazza walk five friendly matrons with twined arms;
LG1855	307	The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold,
LG1855	308	The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle,
LG1855	309	The fare-collector goes through the train—he gives notice by the jingling of loose change,
LG1855	310	The floormen are laying the floor—the tinners are tinning the roof—the masons are calling for mortar,
LG1855	311	In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers;
LG1855	312	Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gathered . . . . it is the Fourth of July . . . . what salutes of cannon and small arms!
LG1855	313	Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs and the mower mows and the wintergrain falls in the ground;
LG1855	314	Off on the lakes the pikefisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen surface,
LG1855	315	The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his axe,
LG1855	316	The flatboatmen make fast toward dusk near the cottonwood or pekantrees,
LG1855	317	The coon-seekers go now through the regions of the Red river, or through those drained by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,
LG1855	318	The torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahoochee or Altamahaw;
LG1855	319	Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great grandsons around them,
LG1855	320	In walls of abodeadobe, in canvass tents, rest hunters and trappers after their day's sport.
LG1855	321	The city sleeps and the country sleeps,
LG1855	322	The living sleep for their time . . . . the dead sleep for their time,
LG1855	323	The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;
LG1855	324	And these one and all tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
LG1855	325	And such as it is to be of these more or less I am.
LG1855	326	I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
LG1855	327	Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
LG1855	328	Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
LG1855	329	Stuffed with the stuff that is coarse, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine,
LG1855	330	One of the great nation, the nation of many nations—the smallest the same and the largest the same,
LG1855	331	A southerner soon as a northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable,
LG1855	332	A Yankee bound my own way . . . . ready for trade . . . . my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,
LG1855	333	A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deerskin leggings,
LG1855	334	A boatman over the lakes or bays or along coasts . . . . a Hoosier, a Badger, a Buckeye,
LG1855	335	A Louisianian or Georgian, a poke-easy from sandhills and pines,
LG1855	336	At home on Canadian snowshoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off New-foundlandNewfoundland,
LG1855	337	At home in the fleet of iceboats, sailing with the rest and tacking,
LG1855	338	At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine or the Texan ranch,
LG1855	339	Comrade of Californians . . . . comrade of free northwesterners, loving their big proportions,
LG1855	340	Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen—comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat;
LG1855	341	A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfulest,
LG1855	342	A novice beginning experient of myriads of seasons,
LG1855	343	Of every hue and trade and rank, of every caste and religion,
LG1855	344	Not merely of the New World but of Africa Europe or Asia . . . . a wandering savage,
LG1855	345	A farmer, mechanic, or artist . . . . a gentleman, sailor, lover or quaker,
LG1855	346	A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician or priest.
LG1855	347	I resist anything better than my own diversity,
LG1855	348	And breathe the air and leave plenty after me,
LG1855	349	And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
LG1855	350	The moth and the fisheggs are in their place,
LG1855	351	The suns I see and the suns I cannot see are in their place,
LG1855	352	The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.
LG1855	353	These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,
LG1855	354	If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to nothing,
LG1855	355	If they do not enclose everything they are next to nothing,
LG1855	356	If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
LG1855	357	If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
LG1855	358	This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
LG1855	359	This is the common air that bathes the globe.
LG1855	360	This is the breath of laws and songs and behaviour,
LG1855	361	This is the the tasteless water of souls . . . . this is the true sustenance,
LG1855	362	It is for the illiterate . . . . it is for the judges of the supreme court . . . . it is for the federal capitol and the state capitols,
LG1855	363	It is for the admirable communes of literary men and composers and singers and lecturers and engineers and savans,
LG1855	364	It is for the endless races of working people and farmers and seamen.
LG1855	365	This is the trill of a thousand clear cornets and scream of the octave flute and strike of triangles.
LG1855	366	I play not a march for victors only . . . . I play great marches for conquered and slain persons.
LG1855	367	Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
LG1855	368	I also say it is good to fall . . . . battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
LG1855	369	I sound triumphal drums for the dead . . . . I fling through my embouchures the loudest and gayest music to them,
LG1855	370	Vivas to those who have failed, and to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea, and those themselves who sank in the sea,
LG1855	371	And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes, and the number-lessnumberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known.
LG1855	372	This is the meal pleasantly set . . . . this is the meat and drink for natural hunger,
LG1855	373	It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous . . . . I make appointments with all,
LG1855	374	I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
LG1855	375	The keptwoman and sponger and thief are hereby invited . . . . the heavy-lipped slave is invited . . . . the venerealee is invited,
LG1855	376	There shall be no difference between them and the rest.
LG1855	377	This is the press of a bashful hand . . . . this is the float and odor of hair,
LG1855	378	This is the touch of my lips to yours . . . . this is the murmur of yearning,
LG1855	379	This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
LG1855	380	This is the thoughtful merge of myself and the outlet again.
LG1855	381	Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
LG1855	382	Well I have . . . . for the April rain has, and the mica on the side of a rock has
LG1855	383	Do you take it I would astonish?
LG1855	384	Does the daylight astonish? or the early redstart twittering through the woods?
LG1855	385	Do I astonish more than they?
LG1855	386	This hour I tell things in confidence,
LG1855	387	I might not tell everybody but I will tell you.
LG1855	388	Who goes there! hankering, gross, mystical, nude?
LG1855	389	How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
LG1855	390	What is a man anyhow? What am I? and what are you?
LG1855	391	All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
LG1855	392	Else it were time lost listening to me.
LG1855	393	I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
LG1855	394	That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth,
LG1855	395	That life is a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbare crape and tears.
LG1855	396	Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids . . . . conformity goes to the fourth-removed,
LG1855	397	I cock my hat as I please indoors or out.
LG1855	398	Shall I pray? Shall I venerate and be ceremonious?
LG1855	399	I have pried through the strata and analyzed to a hair,
LG1855	400	And counselled with doctors and calculated close and found no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
LG1855	401	In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less,
LG1855	402	And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.
LG1855	403	And I know I am solid and sound,
LG1855	404	To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
LG1855	405	All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.
LG1855	406	And I know I am deathless,
LG1855	407	I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
LG1855	408	I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.
LG1855	409	I know I am august,
LG1855	410	I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
LG1855	411	I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
LG1855	412	I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by after all.
LG1855	413	I exist as I am, that is enough,
LG1855	414	If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
LG1855	415	And if each and all be aware I sit content.
LG1855	416	One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
LG1855	417	And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
LG1855	418	I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
LG1855	419	My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,
LG1855	420	I laugh at what you call dissolution,
LG1855	421	And I know the amplitude of time.
LG1855	422	I am the poet of the body,
LG1855	423	And I am the poet of the soul.
LG1855	424	The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me,
LG1855	425	The first I graft and increase upon myself . . . . the latter I translate into a new tongue.
LG1855	426	I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
LG1855	427	And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
LG1855	428	And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
LG1855	429	I chant a new chant of dilation or pride,
LG1855	430	We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,
LG1855	431	I show that size is only developementdevelopment.
LG1855	432	Have you outstript the rest? Are you the President?
LG1855	433	It is a trifle . . . . they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.
LG1855	434	I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;
LG1855	435	I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
LG1855	436	Press close barebosomed night! Press close magnetic nourishing night!
LG1855	437	Night of south winds! Night of the large few stars!
LG1855	438	Still nodding night! Mad naked summer night!
LG1855	439	Smile O voluptuous coolbreathed earth!
LG1855	440	Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
LG1855	441	Earth of departed sunset! Earth of the mountains misty-topt!
LG1855	442	Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
LG1855	443	Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
LG1855	444	Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
LG1855	445	Far-swooping elbowed earth! Rich apple-blossomed earth!
LG1855	446	Smile, for your lover comes!
LG1855	447	Prodigal! you have given me love! . . . . therefore I to you give love!
LG1855	448	O unspeakable passionate love!
LG1855	449	Thruster holding me tight and that I hold tight!
LG1855	450	We hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt each other.
LG1855	451	You sea! I resign myself to you also . . . . I guess what you mean,
LG1855	452	I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,
LG1855	453	I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me;
LG1855	454	We must have a turn together . . . . I undress . . . . hurry me out of sight of the land,
LG1855	455	Cushion me soft . . . . rock me in billowy drowse,
LG1855	456	Dash me with amorous wet . . . . I can repay you.
LG1855	457	Sea of stretched ground-swells!
LG1855	458	Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths!
LG1855	459	Sea of the brine of life! Sea of unshovelled and always-ready graves!
LG1855	460	Howler and scooper of storms! Capricious and dainty sea!
LG1855	461	I am integral with you . . . . I too am of one phase and of all phases.
LG1855	462	Partaker of influx and efflux . . . . extoler of hate and conciliation,
LG1855	463	Extoler of amies and those that sleep in each others' arms.
LG1855	464	I am he attesting sympathy;
LG1855	465	Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them?
LG1855	466	I am the poet of commonsense and of the demonstrable and of immortality;
LG1855	467	And am not the poet of goodness only . . . . I do not decline to be the poet of wick-ednesswickedness also.
LG1855	468	Washes and razors for foofoos . . . . for me freckles and a bristling beard.
LG1855	469	What blurt is it about virtue and about vice?
LG1855	470	Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me . . . . I stand indifferent,
LG1855	471	My gait is no faultfinder's or rejecter's gait,
LG1855	472	I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
LG1855	473	Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?
LG1855	474	Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be worked over and rectified?
LG1855	475	I step up to say that what we do is right and what we affirm is right . . . . and some is only the ore of right,
LG1855	476	Witnesses of us . . . . one side a balance and the antipodal side a balance,
LG1855	477	Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine,
LG1855	478	Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start.
LG1855	479	This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,
LG1855	480	There is no better than it and now.
LG1855	481	What behaved well in the past or behaves well today is not such a wonder,
LG1855	482	The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel.
LG1855	483	Endless unfolding of words of ages!
LG1855	484	And mine a word of the modern . . . . a word en masse.
LG1855	485	A word of the faith that never balks,
LG1855	486	One time as good as another time . . . . here or henceforward it is all the same to me.
LG1855	487	A word of reality . . . . materialism first and last imbueing.
LG1855	488	Hurrah for positive science! Long live exact demonstration!
LG1855	489	Fetch stonecrop and mix it with cedar and branches of lilac;
LG1855	490	This is the lexicographer or chemist . . . . this made a grammar of the old cartouches,
LG1855	491	These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas,
LG1855	492	This is the geologist, and this works with the scalpel, and this is a mathematician.
LG1855	493	Gentlemen I receive you, and attach and clasp hands with you,
LG1855	494	The facts are useful and real . . . . they are not my dwelling . . . . I enter by them to an area of the dwelling.
LG1855	495	I am less the reminder of property or qualities, and more the reminder of life,
LG1855	496	And go on the square for my own sake and for others' sakes,
LG1855	497	And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and women fully equipped,
LG1855	498	And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them that plot and conspire.
LG1855	499	Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,
LG1855	500	Disorderly fleshy and sensual . . . . eating drinking and breeding,
LG1855	501	No sentimentalist . . . . no stander above men and women or apart from them . . . . no more modest than immodest.
LG1855	502	Unscrew the locks from the doors!
LG1855	503	Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
LG1855	504	Whoever degrades another degrades me . . . . and whatever is done or said returns at last to me,
LG1855	505	And whatever I do or say I also return.
LG1855	506	Through me the afflatus surging and surging . . . . through me the current and index.
LG1855	507	I speak the password primeval . . . . I give the sign of democracy;
LG1855	508	By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.
LG1855	509	Through me many long dumb voices,
LG1855	510	Voices of the interminable generations of slaves,
LG1855	511	Voices of prostitutes and of deformed persons,
LG1855	512	Voices of the diseased and despairing, and of thieves and dwarfs,
LG1855	513	Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,
LG1855	514	And of the threads that connect the stars—and of wombs, and of the fatherstuff,
LG1855	515	And of the rights of them the others are down upon,
LG1855	516	Of the trivial and flat and foolish and despised,
LG1855	517	Of fog in the air and beetles rolling balls of dung.
LG1855	518	Through me forbidden voices,
LG1855	519	Voices of sexes and lusts . . . . voices veiled, and I remove the veil,
LG1855	520	Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigured.
LG1855	521	I do not press my finger across my mouth,
LG1855	522	I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,
LG1855	523	Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
LG1855	524	I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
LG1855	525	Seeing hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
LG1855	526	Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from;
LG1855	527	The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,
LG1855	528	This head is more than churches or bibles or creeds.
LG1855	529	If I worship any particular thing it shall be some of the spread of my body;
LG1855	530	Translucent mould of me it shall be you,
LG1855	531	Shaded ledges and rests, firm masculine coulter, it shall be you,
LG1855	532	Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you,
LG1855	533	You my rich blood, your milky stream pale strippings of my life;
LG1855	534	Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you,
LG1855	535	My brain it shall be your occult convolutions,
LG1855	536	Root of washed sweet-flag, timorous pond-snipe, nest of guarded duplicate eggs, it shall be you,
LG1855	537	Mixed tussled hay of head and beard and brawn it shall be you,
LG1855	538	Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you;
LG1855	539	Sun so generous it shall be you,
LG1855	540	Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you,
LG1855	541	You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you,
LG1855	542	Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you,
LG1855	543	Broad muscular fields, branches of liveoak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you,
LG1855	544	Hands I have taken, face I have kissed, mortal I have ever touched, it shall be you.
LG1855	545	I dote on myself . . . . there is that lot of me, and all so luscious,
LG1855	546	Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy.
LG1855	547	I cannot tell how my ankles bend . . . . nor whence the cause of my faintest wish,
LG1855	548	Nor the cause of the friendship I emit . . . . nor the cause of the friendship I take again.
LG1855	549	To walk up my stoop is unaccountable . . . . I pause to consider if it really be,
LG1855	550	That I eat and drink is spectacle enough for the great authors and schools,
LG1855	551	A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
LG1855	552	To behold the daybreak!
LG1855	553	The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,
LG1855	554	The air tastes good to my palate.
LG1855	555	Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols, silently rising, freshly exuding,
LG1855	556	Scooting obliquely high and low.
LG1855	557	Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,
LG1855	558	Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.
LG1855	559	The earth by the sky staid with . . . . the daily close of their junction,
LG1855	560	The heaved challenge from the east that moment over my head,
LG1855	561	The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!
LG1855	562	Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sunrise would kill me,
LG1855	563	If I could not now and always send sunrise out of me.
LG1855	564	We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
LG1855	565	We found our own my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak.
LG1855	566	My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
LG1855	567	With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.
LG1855	568	Speech is the twin of my vision . . . . it is unequal to measure itself.
LG1855	569	It provokes me forever,
LG1855	570	It says sarcastically, Walt, you understand enough . . . . why don't you let it out then?
LG1855	571	Come now I will not be tantalized . . . . you conceive too much of articulation.
LG1855	572	Do you not know how the buds beneath are folded?
LG1855	573	Waiting in gloom protected by frost,
LG1855	574	The dirt receding before my prophetical screams,
LG1855	575	I underlying causes to balance them at last,
LG1855	576	My knowledge my live parts . . . . it keeping tally with the meaning of things,
LG1855	577	Happiness . . . . which whoever hears me let him or her set out in search of this day.
LG1855	578	My final merit I refuse you . . . . I refuse putting from me the best I am.
LG1855	579	Encompass worlds but never try to encompass me,
LG1855	580	I crowd your noisiest talk by looking toward you.
LG1855	581	Writing and talk do not prove me,
LG1855	582	I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,
LG1855	583	With the hush of my lips I confound the topmost skeptic.
LG1855	584	I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen,
LG1855	585	And accrue what I hear into myself . . . . and let sounds contribute toward me.
LG1855	586	I hear the bravuras of birds . . . . the bustle of growing wheat . . . . gossip of flames . . . . clack of sticks cooking my meals.
LG1855	587	I hear the sound of the human voice . . . . a sound I love,
LG1855	588	I hear all sounds as they are tuned to their uses . . . . sounds of the city and sounds out of the city . . . . sounds of the day and night;
LG1855	589	Talkative young ones to those that like them . . . . the recitative of fish-pedlars and fruit-pedlars . . . . the loud laugh of workpeople at their meals,
LG1855	590	The angry base of disjointed friendship . . . . the faint tones of the sick,
LG1855	591	The judge with hands tight to the desk, his shaky lips pronouncing a death-sentence,
LG1855	592	The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves . . . . the refrain of the anchor-lifters;
LG1855	593	The ring of alarm-bells . . . . the cry of fire . . . . the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and colored lights,
LG1855	594	The steam-whistle . . . . the solid roll of the train of approaching cars;
LG1855	595	The slow-march played at night at the head of the association,
LG1855	596	They go to guard some corpse . . . . the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.
LG1855	597	I hear the violincello or man's heart's complaint,
LG1855	598	And hear the keyed cornet or else the echo of sunset.
LG1855	599	I hear the chorus . . . . it is a grand-opera . . . . this indeed is music!
LG1855	600	A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,
LG1855	601	The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.
LG1855	602	I hear the trained soprano . . . . she convulses me like the climax of my love-grip;
LG1855	603	The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,
LG1855	604	It wrenches unnamable ardors from my breast,
LG1855	605	It throbs me to gulps of the farthest down horror,
LG1855	606	It sails me . . . . I dab with bare feet . . . . they are licked by the indolent waves,
LG1855	607	I am exposed . . . . cut by bitter and poisoned hail,
LG1855	608	Steeped amid honeyed morphine . . . . my windpipe squeezed in the fakes of death,
LG1855	609	Let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
LG1855	610	And that we call Being.
LG1855	611	To be in any form, what is that?
LG1855	612	If nothing lay more developed the quahaug and its callous shell were enough.
LG1855	613	Mine is no callous shell,
LG1855	614	I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
LG1855	615	They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.
LG1855	616	I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,
LG1855	617	To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand.
LG1855	618	Is this then a touch? . . . . quivering me to a new identity,
LG1855	619	Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
LG1855	620	Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,
LG1855	621	My flesh and blood playing out lightning, to strike what is hardly different from myself,
LG1855	622	On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,
LG1855	623	Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,
LG1855	624	Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,
LG1855	625	Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,
LG1855	626	Unbuttoning my clothes and holding me by the bare waist,
LG1855	627	Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture fields,
LG1855	628	Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,
LG1855	629	They bribed to swap off with touch, and go and graze at the edges of me,
LG1855	630	No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger,
LG1855	631	Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them awhile,
LG1855	632	Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.
LG1855	633	The sentries desert every other part of me,
LG1855	634	They have left me helpless to a red marauder,
LG1855	635	They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me.
LG1855	636	I am given up by traitors;
LG1855	637	I talk wildly . . . . I have lost my wits . . . . I and nobody else am the greatest traitor,
LG1855	638	I went myself first to the headland . . . . my own hands carried me there.
LG1855	639	You villain touch! what are you doing? . . . . my breath is tight in its throat;
LG1855	640	Unclench your floodgates! you are too much for me.
LG1855	641	Blind loving wrestling touch! Sheathed hooded sharptoothed touch!
LG1855	642	Did it make you ache so leaving me?
LG1855	643	Parting tracked by arriving . . . . perpetual payment of the perpetual loan,
LG1855	644	Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.
LG1855	645	Sprouts take and accumulate . . . . stand by the curb prolific and vital,
LG1855	646	Landscapes projected masculine full-sized and golden.
LG1855	647	All truths wait in all things,
LG1855	648	They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
LG1855	649	They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
LG1855	650	The insignificant is as big to me as any,
LG1855	651	What is less or more than a touch?
LG1855	652	Logic and sermons never convince,
LG1855	653	The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.
LG1855	654	Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,
LG1855	655	Only what nobody denies is so.
LG1855	656	A minute and a drop of me settle my brain;
LG1855	657	I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,
LG1855	658	And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman,
LG1855	659	And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other,
LG1855	660	And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific,
LG1855	661	And until every one shall delight us, and we them.
LG1855	662	I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars,
LG1855	663	And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
LG1855	664	And the tree-toad is a chef-d'ouvre for the highest,
LG1855	665	And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
LG1855	666	And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
LG1855	667	And the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,
LG1855	668	And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,
LG1855	669	And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer's girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking shortcake.
LG1855	670	I find I incorporate gneiss and coal and long-threaded moss and fruits and grains and esculent roots,
LG1855	671	And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over,
LG1855	672	And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,
LG1855	673	And call any thing close again when I desire it.
LG1855	674	In vain the speeding or shyness,
LG1855	675	In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach,
LG1855	676	In vain the mastadon retreats beneath its own powdered bones,
LG1855	677	In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes,
LG1855	678	In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying low,
LG1855	679	In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky,
LG1855	680	In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs,
LG1855	681	In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods,
LG1855	682	In vain the razorbilled auk sails far north to Labrador,
LG1855	683	I follow quickly . . . . I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.
LG1855	684	I think I could turn and live awhile with the animals . . . . they are so placid and self-containedself-contained,
LG1855	685	I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.
LG1855	686	They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
LG1855	687	They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
LG1855	688	They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
LG1855	689	Not one is dissatisfied . . . . not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
LG1855	690	Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
LG1855	691	Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.
LG1855	692	So they show their relations to me and I accept them;
LG1855	693	They bring me tokens of myself . . . . they evince them plainly in their possession.
LG1855	694	I do not know where they got those tokens,
LG1855	695	I must have passed that way untold times ago and negligently dropt them,
LG1855	696	Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
LG1855	697	Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,
LG1855	698	Infinite and omnigenous and the like of these among them;
LG1855	699	Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,
LG1855	700	Picking out here one that shall be my amie,
LG1855	701	Choosing to go with him on brotherly terms.
LG1855	702	A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,
LG1855	703	Head high in the forehead and wide between the ears,
LG1855	704	Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
LG1855	705	Eyes well apart and full of sparkling wickedness . . . . ears finely cut and flexibly moving.
LG1855	706	His nostrils dilate . . . . my heels embrace him . . . . his well built limbs tremble with pleasure . . . . we speed around and return.
LG1855	707	I but use you a moment and then I resign you stallion . . . . and do not need your paces, and outgallop them,
LG1855	708	And myself as I stand or sit pass faster than you.
LG1855	709	Swift wind! Space! My Soul! Now I know it is true what I guessed at;
LG1855	710	What I guessed when I loafed on the grass,
LG1855	711	What I guessed while I lay alone in my bed . . . . and again as I walked the beach under the paling stars of the morning.
LG1855	712	My ties and ballasts leave me . . . . I travel . . . . I sail . . . . my elbows rest in the sea-gaps,
LG1855	713	I skirt the sierras . . . . my palms cover continents,
LG1855	714	I am afoot with my vision.
LG1855	715	By the city's quadrangular houses . . . . in log-huts, or camping with lumbermen,
LG1855	716	Along the ruts of the turnpike . . . . along the dry gulch and rivulet bed,
LG1855	717	Hoeing my onion-patch, and rows of carrots and parsnips . . . . crossing savannas . . . trailing in forests,
LG1855	718	Prospecting . . . . gold-digging . . . . girdling the trees of a new purchase,
LG1855	719	Scorched ankle-deep by the hot sand . . . . hauling my boat down the shallow river;
LG1855	720	Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead . . . . where the buck turns furiously at the hunter,
LG1855	721	Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock . . . . where the otter is feeding on fish,
LG1855	722	Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,
LG1855	723	Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey . . . . where the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-tail;
LG1855	724	Over the growing sugar . . . . over the cottonplant . . . . over the rice in its low moist field;
LG1855	725	Over the sharp-peaked farmhouse with its scalloped scum and slender shoots from the gutters;
LG1855	726	Over the western persimmon . . . . over the longleaved corn and the delicate blue-floweredblue-flowered flax;
LG1855	727	Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and a buzzer there with the rest,
LG1855	728	Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the breeze;
LG1855	729	Scaling mountains . . . . pulling myself cautiously up . . . . holding on by low scrag-gedscragged limbs,
LG1855	730	Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of the brush;
LG1855	731	Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheatlot,
LG1855	732	Where the bat flies in the July eve . . . . where the great goldbug drops through the dark;
LG1855	733	Where the flails keep time on the barn floor,
LG1855	734	Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to the meadow,
LG1855	735	Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous shuddering of their hides,
LG1855	736	Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, and andirons straddle the hearth-slab, and cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters;
LG1855	737	Where triphammers crash . . . . where the press is whirling its cylinders;
LG1855	738	Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes out of its ribs;
LG1855	739	Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft . . . . floating in it myself and look-inglooking composedly down;
LG1855	740	Where the life-car is drawn on the slipnoose . . . . where the heat hatches pale-greenpale-green eggs in the dented sand,
LG1855	741	Where the she-whale swims with her calves and never forsakes them,
LG1855	742	Where the steamship trails hindways its long pennant of smoke,
LG1855	743	Where the ground-shark's fin cuts like a black chip out of the water,
LG1855	744	Where the half-burned brig is riding on unknown currents,
LG1855	745	Where shells grow to her slimy deck, and the dead are corrupting below;
LG1855	746	Where the striped and starred flag is borne at the head of the regiments;
LG1855	747	Approaching Manhattan, up by the long-stretching island,
LG1855	748	Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance;
LG1855	749	Upon a door-step . . . . upon the horse-block of hard wood outside,
LG1855	750	Upon the race-course, or enjoying pic-nics or jigs or a good game of base-ball,
LG1855	751	At he-festivals with blackguard jibes and ironical license and bull-dances and drinking and laughter,
LG1855	752	At the cider-mill, tasting the sweet of the brown sqush . . . . sucking the juice through a straw,
LG1855	753	At apple-pealings, wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,
LG1855	754	At musters and beach-parties and friendly bees and huskings and house-raisings;
LG1855	755	Where the mockingbird sounds his delicious gurgles, and cackles and screams and weeps,
LG1855	756	Where the hay-rick stands in the barnyard, and the dry-stalks are scattered, and the brood cow waits in the hovel,
LG1855	757	Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, and the stud to the mare, and the cock is treading the hen,
LG1855	758	Where the heifers browse, and the geese nip their food with short jerks;
LG1855	759	Where the sundown shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie,
LG1855	760	Where the herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near;
LG1855	761	Where the hummingbird shimmers . . . . where the neck of the longlived swan is curving and winding;
LG1855	762	Where the laughing-gull scoots by the slappy shore and laughs her near-human laugh;
LG1855	763	Where beehives range on a gray bench in the garden half-hid by the high weeds;
LG1855	764	Where the band-necked partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads out;
LG1855	765	Where burial coaches enter the arched gates of a cemetery;
LG1855	766	Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees;
LG1855	767	Where the yellow-crowned heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs;
LG1855	768	Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon;
LG1855	769	Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well;
LG1855	770	Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves,
LG1855	771	Through the salt-lick or orange glade . . . . or under conical fursfirs;
LG1855	772	Through the gymnasium . . . . through the curtained saloon . . . . through the office or public hall;
LG1855	773	Pleased with the native and pleased with the foreign . . . . pleased with the new and old,
LG1855	774	Pleased with women, the homely as well as the handsome,
LG1855	775	Pleased with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously,
LG1855	776	Pleased with the primitive tunes of the choir of the whitewashed church,
LG1855	777	Pleased with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, or any preacher . . . . looking seriously at the camp-meeting;
LG1855	778	Looking in at the shop-windows in Broadway the whole forenoon . . . . pressing the flesh of my nose to the thick plate-glass,
LG1855	779	Wandering the same afternoon with my face turned up to the clouds;
LG1855	780	My right and left arms round the sides of two friends and I in the middle;
LG1855	781	Coming home with the bearded and dark-cheeked bush-boy . . . . riding behind him at the drape of the day;
LG1855	782	Far from the settlements studying the print of animals' feet, or the moccasin print;
LG1855	783	By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,
LG1855	784	By the coffined corpse when all is still, examining with a candle;
LG1855	785	Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure;
LG1855	786	Hurrying with the modern crowd, as eager and fickle as any,
LG1855	787	Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him;
LG1855	788	Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while,
LG1855	789	Walking the old hills of Judea with the beautiful gentle god by my side;
LG1855	790	Speeding through space . . . . speeding through heaven and the stars,
LG1855	791	Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring and the diameter of eighty thousand miles,
LG1855	792	Speeding with tailed meteors . . . . throwing fire-balls like the rest,
LG1855	793	Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly;
LG1855	794	Storming enjoying planning loving cautioning,
LG1855	795	Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,
LG1855	796	I tread day and night such roads.
LG1855	797	I visit the orchards of God and look at the spheric product,
LG1855	798	And look at quintillions ripened, and look at quintillions green.
LG1855	799	I fly the flight of the fluid and swallowing soul,
LG1855	800	My course runs below the soundings of plummets.
LG1855	801	I help myself to material and immaterial,
LG1855	802	No guard can shut me off, no law can prevent me.
LG1855	803	I anchor my ship for a little while only,
LG1855	804	My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.
LG1855	805	I go hunting polar furs and the seal . . . . leaping chasms with a pike-pointed staff . . . . clinging to topples of brittle and blue.
LG1855	806	I ascend to the foretruck . . . . I take my place late at night in the crow's nest . . . . we sail through the arctic sea . . . . it is plenty light enough,
LG1855	807	Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty,
LG1855	808	The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them . . . . the scenery is plain in all directions,
LG1855	809	The white-topped mountains point up in the distance . . . . I fling out my fancies toward them;
LG1855	810	We are about approaching some great battlefield in which we are soon to be engaged,
LG1855	811	We pass the colossal outposts of the encampments . . . . we pass with still feet and caution;
LG1855	812	Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruined city . . . . the blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities of the globe.
LG1855	813	I am a free companion . . . . I bivouac by invading watchfires.
LG1855	814	I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself,
LG1855	815	And tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.
LG1855	816	My voice is the wife's voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,
LG1855	817	They fetch my man's body up dripping and drowned.
LG1855	818	I understand the large hearts of heroes,
LG1855	819	The courage of present times and all times;
LG1855	820	How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and death chasing it up and down the storm,
LG1855	821	How he knuckled tight and gave not back one inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights,
LG1855	822	And chalked in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, We will not desert you;
LG1855	823	How he saved the drifting company at last,
LG1855	824	How the lank loose-gowned women looked when boated from the side of their prepared graves,
LG1855	825	How the silent old-faced infants, and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipped unshaved men;
LG1855	826	All this I swallow and it tastes good . . . . I like it well, and it becomes mine,
LG1855	827	I am the man . . . . I suffered . . . . I was there.
LG1855	828	The disdain and calmness of martyrs,
LG1855	829	The mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry wood, and her children gazing on;
LG1855	830	The hounded slave that flags in the race and leans by the fence, blowing and covered with sweat,
LG1855	831	The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck,
LG1855	832	The murderous buckshot and the bullets,
LG1855	833	All these I feel or am.
LG1855	834	I am the hounded slave . . . . I wince at the bite of the dogs,
LG1855	835	Hell and despair are upon me . . . . crack and again crack the marksmen,
LG1855	836	I clutch the rails of the fence . . . . my gore dribs thinned with the ooze of my skin,
LG1855	837	I fall on the weeds and stones,
LG1855	838	The riders spur their unwilling horses and haul close,
LG1855	839	They taunt my dizzy ears . . . . they beat me violently over the head with their whip-stocks.
LG1855	840	Agonies are one of my changes of garments;
LG1855	841	I do not ask the wounded person how he feels . . . . I myself become the wounded person,
LG1855	842	My hurt turns livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.
LG1855	843	I am the mashed fireman with breastbone broken . . . . tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
LG1855	844	Heat and smoke I inspired . . . . I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
LG1855	845	I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels;
LG1855	846	They have cleared the beams away . . . . they tenderly lift me forth.
LG1855	847	I lie in the night air in my red shirt . . . . the pervading hush is for my sake,
LG1855	848	Painless after all I lie, exhausted but not so unhappy,
LG1855	849	White and beautiful are the faces around me . . . . the heads are bared of their fire-capsfire-caps,
LG1855	850	The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.
LG1855	851	Distant and dead resuscitate,
LG1855	852	They show as the dial or move as the hands of me . . . . and I am the clock myself.
LG1855	853	I am an old artillerist, and tell of some fort's bombardment . . . . and am there again.
LG1855	854	Again the reveille of drummers . . . . again the attacking cannon and mortars and howitzers,
LG1855	855	Again the attacked send their cannon responsive.
LG1855	856	I take part . . . . I see and hear the whole,
LG1855	857	The cries and curses and roar . . . . the plaudits for well aimed shots,
LG1855	858	The ambulanza slowly passing and trailing its red drip,
LG1855	859	Workmen searching after damages and to make indispensible repairs,
LG1855	860	The fall of grenades through the rent roof . . . . the fan-shaped explosion,
LG1855	861	The whizz of limbs heads stone wood and iron high in the air.
LG1855	862	Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general . . . . he furiously waves with his hand,
LG1855	863	He gasps through the clot . . . . Mind not me . . . . mind . . . . the entrenchments.
LG1855	864	I tell not the fall of Alamo . . . . not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,
LG1855	865	The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo.
LG1855	866	Hear now the tale of a jetblack sunrise,
LG1855	867	Hear of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men.
LG1855	868	Retreating they had formed in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks,
LG1855	869	Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's nine times their number was the price they took in advance,
LG1855	870	Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone,
LG1855	871	They treated for an honorable capitulation, received writing and seal, gave up their arms, and marched back prisoners of war.
LG1855	872	They were the glory of the race of rangers,
LG1855	873	Matchless with a horse, a rifle, a song, a supper or a courtship,
LG1855	874	Large, turbulent, brave, handsome, generous, proud and affectionate,
LG1855	875	Bearded, sunburnt, dressed in the free costume of hunters,
LG1855	876	Not a single one over thirty years of age.
LG1855	877	The second Sunday morning they were brought out in squads and massacred . . . . it was beautiful early summer,
LG1855	878	The work commenced about five o'clock and was over by eight.
LG1855	879	None obeyed the command to kneel,
LG1855	880	Some made a mad and helpless rush . . . . some stood stark and straight,
LG1855	881	A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart . . . . the living and dead lay together,
LG1855	882	The maimed and mangled dug in the dirt . . . . the new-comers saw them there;
LG1855	883	Some half-killed attempted to crawl away,
LG1855	884	These were dispatched with bayonets or battered with the blunts of muskets;
LG1855	885	A youth not seventeen years old seized his assassin till two more came to release him,
LG1855	886	The three were all torn, and covered with the boy's blood.
LG1855	887	At eleven o'clock began the burning of the bodies;
LG1855	888	And that is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men,
LG1855	889	And that was a jetblack sunrise.
LG1855	890	Did you read in the seabooks of the oldfashioned frigate-fight?
LG1855	891	Did you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?
LG1855	892	Our foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you,
LG1855	893	His was the English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;
LG1855	894	Along the lowered eve he came, horribly raking us.
LG1855	895	We closed with him . . . . the yards entangled . . . . the cannon touched,
LG1855	896	My captain lashed fast with his own hands.
LG1855	897	We had received some eighteen-pound shots under the water,
LG1855	898	On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.
LG1855	899	Ten o'clock at night, and the full moon shining and the leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported,
LG1855	900	The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.
LG1855	901	The transit to and from the magazine was now stopped by the sentinels,
LG1855	902	They saw so many strange faces they did not know whom to trust.
LG1855	903	Our frigate was afire . . . . the other asked if we demanded quarters? if our colors were struck and the fighting done?
LG1855	904	I laughed content when I heard the voice of my little captain,
LG1855	905	We have not struck, he composedly cried, We have just begun our part of the fighting.
LG1855	906	Only three guns were in use,
LG1855	907	One was directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast,
LG1855	908	Two well-served with grape and canister silenced his musketry and cleared his decks.
LG1855	909	The tops alone seconded the fire of this little battery, especially the maintop,
LG1855	910	They all held out bravely during the whole of the action.
LG1855	911	Not a moment's cease,
LG1855	912	The leaks gained fast on the pumps . . . . the fire eat toward the powder-magazine,
LG1855	913	One of the pumps was shot away . . . . it was generally thought we were sinking.
LG1855	914	Serene stood the little captain,
LG1855	915	He was not hurried . . . . his voice was neither high nor low,
LG1855	916	His eyes gave more light to us than our battle-lanterns.
LG1855	917	Toward twelve at night, there in the beams of the moon they surrendered to us.
LG1855	918	Stretched and still lay the midnight,
LG1855	919	Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness,
LG1855	920	Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking . . . . preparations to pass to the one we had conquered,
LG1855	921	The captain on the quarter deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet,
LG1855	922	Near by the corpse of the child that served in the cabin,
LG1855	923	The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curled whiskers,
LG1855	924	The flames spite of all that could be done flickering aloft and below,
LG1855	925	The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty,
LG1855	926	Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves . . . . dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars,
LG1855	927	The cut of cordage and dangle of rigging . . . . the slight shock of the soothe of waves,
LG1855	928	Black and impassive guns, and litter of powder-parcels, and the strong scent,
LG1855	929	Delicate sniffs of the seabreeze . . . . smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore . . . death-messages given in charge to survivors,
LG1855	930	The hiss of the surgeon's knife and the gnawing teeth of his saw,
LG1855	931	The wheeze, the cluck, the swash of falling blood . . . . the short wild scream, the long dull tapering groan,
LG1855	932	These so . . . . these irretrievable.
LG1855	933	O Christ! My fit is mastering me!
LG1855	934	What the rebel said gaily adjusting his throat to the rope-noose,
LG1855	935	What the savage at the stump, his eye-sockets empty, his mouth spirting whoops and defiance,
LG1855	936	What stills the traveler come to the vault at Mount Vernon,
LG1855	937	What sobers the Brooklyn boy as he looks down the shores of the Wallabout and remembers the prison ships,
LG1855	938	What burnt the gums of the redcoat at Saratoga when he surrendered his brigades,
LG1855	939	These become mine and me every one, and they are but little,
LG1855	940	I become as much more as I like.
LG1855	941	I become any presence or truth of humanity here,
LG1855	942	And see myself in prison shaped like another man,
LG1855	943	And feel the dull unintermitted pain.
LG1855	944	For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch,
LG1855	945	It is I let out in the morning and barred at night.
LG1855	946	Not a mutineer walks handcuffed to the jail, but I am handcuffed to him and walk by his side,
LG1855	947	I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat on my twitching lips.
LG1855	948	Not a youngster is taken for larceny, but I go up too and am tried and sentenced.
LG1855	949	Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp, but I also lie at the last gasp,
LG1855	950	My face is ash-colored, my sinews gnarl . . . . away from me people retreat.
LG1855	951	Askers embody themselves in me, and I am embodied in them,
LG1855	952	I project my hat and sit shamefaced and beg.
LG1855	953	I rise extatic through all, and sweep with the true gravitation,
LG1855	954	The whirling and whirling is elemental within me.
LG1855	955	Somehow I have been stunned. Stand back!
LG1855	956	Give me a little time beyond my cuffed head and slumbers and dreams and gaping,
LG1855	957	I discover myself on a verge of the usual mistake.
LG1855	958	That I could forget the mockers and insults!
LG1855	959	That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the bludgeons and hammers!
LG1855	960	That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning!
LG1855	961	I remember . . . . I resume the overstaid fraction,
LG1855	962	The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it . . . . or to any graves,
LG1855	963	The corpses rise . . . . the gashes heal . . . . the fastenings roll away.
LG1855	964	I troop forth replenished with supreme power, one of an average unending procession,
LG1855	965	We walk the roads of Ohio and Massachusetts and Virginia and Wisconsin and New York and New Orleans and Texas and Montreal and San Francisco and Charleston and Savannah and Mexico,
LG1855	966	Inland and by the seacoast and boundary lines . . . . and we pass the boundary lines.
LG1855	967	Our swift ordinances are on their way over the whole earth,
LG1855	968	The blossoms we wear in our hats are the growth of two thousand years.
LG1855	969	Eleves I salute you,
LG1855	970	I see the approach of your numberless gangs . . . . I see you understand yourselves and me,
LG1855	971	And know that they who have eyes are divine, and the blind and lame are equally divine,
LG1855	972	And that my steps drag behind yours yet go before them,
LG1855	973	And are aware how I am with you no more than I am with everybody.
LG1855	974	The friendly and flowing savage . . . . Who is he?
LG1855	975	Is he waiting for civilization or past it and mastering it?
LG1855	976	Is he some southwesterner raised outdoors? Is he Canadian?
LG1855	977	Is he from the Mississippi country? or from Iowa, Oregon or California? or from the mountains? or prairie life or bush-life? or from the sea?
LG1855	978	Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,
LG1855	979	They desire he should like them and touch them and speak to them and stay with them.
LG1855	980	Behaviour lawless as snow-flakes . . . . words simple as grass . . . . uncombed head and laughter and naivete;
LG1855	981	Slowstepping feet and the common features, and the common modes and emanations,
LG1855	982	They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers,
LG1855	983	They are wafted with the odor of his body or breath . . . . they fly out of the glance of his eyes.
LG1855	984	Flaunt of the sunshine I need not your bask . . . . lie over,
LG1855	985	You light surfaces only . . . . I force the surfaces and the depths also.
LG1855	986	Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands,
LG1855	987	Say old topknot! what do you want?
LG1855	988	Man or woman! I might tell how I like you, but cannot,
LG1855	989	And might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but cannot,
LG1855	990	And might tell the pinings I have . . . . the pulse of my nights and days.
LG1855	991	Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity,
LG1855	992	What I give I give out of myself.
LG1855	993	You there, impotent, loose in the knees, open your scarfed chops till I blow grit within you,
LG1855	994	Spread your palms and lift the flaps of your pockets,
LG1855	995	I am not to be denied . . . . I compel . . . . I have stores plenty and to spare,
LG1855	996	And any thing I have I bestow.
LG1855	997	I do not ask who you are . . . . that is not important to me,
LG1855	998	You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.
LG1855	999	To a drudge of the cottonfields or emptier of privies I lean . . . . on his right cheek I put the family kiss,
LG1855	1000	And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.
LG1855	1001	On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes,
LG1855	1002	This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant republics.
LG1855	1003	To any one dying . . . . thither I speed and twist the knob of the door,
LG1855	1004	Turn the bedclothes toward the foot of the bed,
LG1855	1005	Let the physician and the priest go home.
LG1855	1006	I seize the descending man . . . . I raise him with resistless will.
LG1855	1007	O despairer, here is my neck,
LG1855	1008	By God! you shall not go down! Hang your whole weight upon me.
LG1855	1009	I dilate you with tremendous breath . . . . I buoy you up;
LG1855	1010	Every room of the house do I fill with aman armed force . . . . lovers of me, bafflers of graves:
LG1855	1011	Sleep! I and they keep guard all night;
LG1855	1012	Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you,
LG1855	1013	I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself,
LG1855	1014	And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so.
LG1855	1015	I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs,
LG1855	1016	And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help.
LG1855	1017	I heard what was said of the universe,
LG1855	1018	Heard it and heard of several thousand years;
LG1855	1019	It is middling well as far as it goes . . . . but is that all?
LG1855	1020	Magnifying and applying come I,
LG1855	1021	Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,
LG1855	1022	The most they offer for mankind and eternity less than a spirt of my own seminal wet,
LG1855	1023	Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah and laying them away,
LG1855	1024	Lithographing Kronos and Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,
LG1855	1025	Buying drafts of Osiris and Isis and Belus and Brahma and Adonai,
LG1855	1026	In my portfolio placing Manito loose, and Allah on a leaf, and the crucifix engraved,
LG1855	1027	With Odin, and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and all idols and images,
LG1855	1028	Honestly taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more,
LG1855	1029	Admitting they were alive and did the work of their day,
LG1855	1030	Admitting they bore mites as for unfledged birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,
LG1855	1031	Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself . . . . bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see,
LG1855	1032	Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house,
LG1855	1033	Putting higher claims for him there with his rolled-up sleeves, driving the mallet and chisel;
LG1855	1034	Not objecting to special revelations . . . . considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand as curious as any revelation;
LG1855	1035	Those ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes more to me than the gods of the antique wars,
LG1855	1036	Minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction,
LG1855	1037	Their brawny limbs passing safe over charred laths . . . . their white foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames;
LG1855	1038	By the mechanic's wife with her babe at her nipple interceding for every person born;
LG1855	1039	Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels with shirts bagged out at their waists;
LG1855	1040	The snag-toothed hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to come,
LG1855	1041	Selling all he possesses and traveling on foot to fee lawyers for his brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery:
LG1855	1042	What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about me, and not filling the square rod then;
LG1855	1043	The bull and the bug never worshipped half enough,
LG1855	1044	Dung and dirt more admirable than was dreamed,
LG1855	1045	The supernatural of no account . . . . myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes,
LG1855	1046	The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious,
LG1855	1047	Guessing when I am it will not tickle me much to receive puffs out of pulpit or print;
LG1855	1048	By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator!
LG1855	1049	Putting myself here and now to the ambushed womb of the shadows!
LG1855	1050	. . . . A call in the midst of the crowd,
LG1855	1051	My own voice, orotund sweeping and final.
LG1855	1052	Come my children,
LG1855	1053	Come my boys and girls, and my women and household and intimates,
LG1855	1054	Now the performer launches his nerve . . . . he has passed his prelude on the reeds within.
LG1855	1055	Easily written loosefingered chords! I feel the thrum of their climax and close.
LG1855	1056	My head evolves on my neck,
LG1855	1057	Music rolls, but not from the organ . . . . folks are around me, but they are no household of mine.
LG1855	1058	Ever the hard and unsunk ground,
LG1855	1059	Ever the eaters and drinkers . . . . ever the upward and downward sun . . . . ever the air and the ceaseless tides,
LG1855	1060	Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing and wicked and real,
LG1855	1061	Ever the old inexplicable query . . . . ever that thorned thumb—that breath of itches and thirsts,
LG1855	1062	Ever the vexer's hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides and bring him forth;
LG1855	1063	Ever love . . . . ever the sobbing liquid of life,
LG1855	1064	Ever the bandage under the chin . . . . ever the tressels of death.
LG1855	1065	Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking,
LG1855	1066	To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning,
LG1855	1067	Tickets buying or taking or selling, but in to the feast never once going;
LG1855	1068	Many sweating and ploughing and thrashing, and then the chaff for payment re-ceivingreceiving,
LG1855	1069	A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.
LG1855	1070	This is the city . . . . and I am one of the citizens;
LG1855	1071	Whatever interests the rest interests me . . . . politics, churches, newspapers, schools,
LG1855	1072	Benevolent societies, improvements, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, markets,
LG1855	1073	Stocks and stores and real estate and personal estate.
LG1855	1074	They who piddle and patter here in collars and tailed coats . . . . I am aware who they are . . . . and that they are not worms or fleas,
LG1855	1075	I acknowledge the duplicates of myself under all the scrape-lipped and pipe-legged concealments.
LG1855	1076	The weakest and shallowest is deathless with me,
LG1855	1077	What I do and say the same waits for them,
LG1855	1078	Every thought that flounders in me the same flounders in them.
LG1855	1079	I know perfectly well my own egotism,
LG1855	1080	And know my omniverous words, and cannot say any less,
LG1855	1081	And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.
LG1855	1082	My words are words of a questioning, and to indicate reality;
LG1855	1083	This printed and bound book . . . . but the printer and the printing-office boy?
LG1855	1084	The marriage estate and settlement . . . . but the body and mind of the bridegroom? also those of the bride?
LG1855	1085	The panorama of the sea . . . . but the sea itself?
LG1855	1086	The well-taken photographs . . . . but your wife or friend close and solid in your arms?
LG1855	1087	The fleet of ships of the line and all the modern improvements . . . . but the craft and pluck of the admiral?
LG1855	1088	The dishes and fare and furniture . . . . but the host and hostess, and the look out of their eyes?
LG1855	1089	The sky up there . . . . yet here or next door or across the way?
LG1855	1090	The saints and sages in history . . . . but you yourself?
LG1855	1091	Sermons and creeds and theology . . . . but the human brain, and what is called reason, and what is called love, and what is called life?
LG1855	1092	I do not despise you priests;
LG1855	1093	My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths,
LG1855	1094	Enclosing all worship ancient and modern, and all between ancient and modern,
LG1855	1095	Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years,
LG1855	1096	Waiting responses from oracles . . . . honoring the gods . . . . saluting the sun,
LG1855	1097	Making a fetish of the first rock or stump . . . . powowing with sticks in the circle of obis,
LG1855	1098	Helping the lama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols,
LG1855	1099	Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession . . . . rapt and austere in the woods, a gymnosophist,
LG1855	1100	Drinking mead from the skull-cup . . . . to shasta and vedas admirant . . . . minding the koran,
LG1855	1101	Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife—beating the serpent-skin drum;
LG1855	1102	Accepting the gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine,
LG1855	1103	To the mass kneeling—to the puritan's prayer rising—sitting patiently in a pew,
LG1855	1104	Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis—waiting dead-like till my spirit arouses me;
LG1855	1105	Looking forth on pavement and land, and outside of pavement and land,
LG1855	1106	Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits.
LG1855	1107	One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang,
LG1855	1108	I turn and talk like a man leaving charges before a journey.
LG1855	1109	Down-hearted doubters, dull and excluded,
LG1855	1110	Frivolous sullen moping angry affected disheartened atheistical,
LG1855	1111	I know every one of you, and know the unspoken interrogatories,
LG1855	1112	By experience I know them.
LG1855	1113	How the flukes splash!
LG1855	1114	How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of blood!
LG1855	1115	Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers,
LG1855	1116	I take my place among you as much as among any;
LG1855	1117	The past is the push of you and me and all precisely the same,
LG1855	1118	And the day and night are for you and me and all,
LG1855	1119	And what is yet untried and afterward is for you and me and all.
LG1855	1120	I do not know what is untried and afterward,
LG1855	1121	But I know it is sure and alive and sufficient.
LG1855	1122	Each who passes is considered, and each who stops is considered, and not a single one can it fail.
LG1855	1123	It cannot fail the young man who died and was buried,
LG1855	1124	Nor the young woman who died and was put by his side,
LG1855	1125	Nor the little child that peeped in at the door and then drew back and was never seen again,
LG1855	1126	Nor the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with bitterness worse than gall,
LG1855	1127	Nor him in the poorhouse tubercled by rum and the bad disorder,
LG1855	1128	Nor the numberless slaughtered and wrecked . . . . nor the brutish koboo, called the ordure of humanity,
LG1855	1129	Nor the sacs merely floating with open mouths for food to slip in,
LG1855	1130	Nor any thing in the earth, or down in the oldest graves of the earth,
LG1855	1131	Nor any thing in the myriads of spheres, nor one of the myriads of myriads that in-habitinhabit them,
LG1855	1132	Nor the present, nor the least wisp that is known.
LG1855	1133	It is time to explain myself . . . . let us stand up.
LG1855	1134	What is known I strip away . . . . I launch all men and women forward with me into the unknown.
LG1855	1135	The clock indicates the moment . . . . but what does eternity indicate?
LG1855	1136	Eternity lies in bottomless reservoirs . . . . its buckets are rising forever and ever,
LG1855	1137	They pour and they pour and they exhale away.
LG1855	1138	We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers;
LG1855	1139	There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.
LG1855	1140	Births have brought us richness and variety,
LG1855	1141	And other births will bring us richness and variety.
LG1855	1142	I do not call one greater and one smaller,
LG1855	1143	That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
LG1855	1144	Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you my brother or my sister?
LG1855	1145	I am sorry for you . . . . they are not murderous or jealous upon me;
LG1855	1146	All has been gentle with me . . . . . . I keep no account with lamentation;
LG1855	1147	What have I to do with lamentation?
LG1855	1148	I am an acme of things accomplished, and I an encloser of things to be.
LG1855	1149	My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,
LG1855	1150	On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps,
LG1855	1151	All below duly traveled—and still I mount and mount.
LG1855	1152	Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,
LG1855	1153	Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, the vapor from the nostrils of death,
LG1855	1154	I know I was even there . . . . I waited unseen and always,
LG1855	1155	And slept while God carried me through the lethargic mist,
LG1855	1156	And took my time . . . . and took no hurt from the fœtid carbon.
LG1855	1157	Long I was hugged close . . . . long and long.
LG1855	1158	Immense have been the preparations for me,
LG1855	1159	Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me.
LG1855	1160	Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen;
LG1855	1161	For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,
LG1855	1162	They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.
LG1855	1163	Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,
LG1855	1164	My embryo has never been torpid . . . . nothing could overlay it;
LG1855	1165	For it the nebula cohered to an orb . . . . the long slow strata piled to rest it on . . . . vast vegetables gave it sustenance,
LG1855	1166	Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care.
LG1855	1167	All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me,
LG1855	1168	Now I stand on this spot with my soul.
LG1855	1169	Span of youth! Ever-pushed elasticity! Manhood balanced and florid and full!
LG1855	1170	My lovers suffocate me!
LG1855	1171	Crowding my lips, and thick in the pores of my skin,
LG1855	1172	Jostling me through streets and public halls . . . . coming naked to me at night,
LG1855	1173	Crying by day Ahoy from the rocks of the river . . . . swinging and chirping over my head,
LG1855	1174	Calling my name from flowerbeds or vines or tangled underbrush,
LG1855	1175	Or while I swim in the bath . . . . or drink from the pump at the corner . . . . or the curtain is down at the opera . . . . or I glimpse at a woman's face in the railroad car;
LG1855	1176	Lighting on every moment of my life,
LG1855	1177	Bussing my body with soft and balsamic busses,
LG1855	1178	Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving them to be mine.
LG1855	1179	Old age superbly rising! Ineffable grace of dying days!
LG1855	1180	Every condition promulges not only itself . . . . it promulges what grows after and out of itself,
LG1855	1181	And the dark hush promulges as much as any.
LG1855	1182	I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems,
LG1855	1183	And all I see, multiplied as high as I can cipher, edge but the rim of the farther systems.
LG1855	1184	Wider and wider they spread, expanding and always expanding,
LG1855	1185	Outward and outward and forever outward.
LG1855	1186	My sun has his sun, and round him obediently wheels,
LG1855	1187	He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit,
LG1855	1188	And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them.
LG1855	1189	There is no stoppage, and never can be stoppage;
LG1855	1190	If I and you and the worlds and all beneath or upon their surfaces, and all the palpable life, were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run,
LG1855	1191	We should surely bring up again where we now stand,
LG1855	1192	And as surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.
LG1855	1193	A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not hazard the span, or make it impatient,
LG1855	1194	They are but parts . . . . any thing is but a part.
LG1855	1195	See ever so far . . . . there is limitless space outside of that,
LG1855	1196	Count ever so much . . . . there is limitless time around that.
LG1855	1197	Our rendezvous is fitly appointed . . . . God will be there and wait till we come.
LG1855	1198	I know I have the best of time and space—and that I was never measured, and never will be measured.
LG1855	1199	I tramp a perpetual journey,
LG1855	1200	My signs are a rain-proof coat and good shoes and a staff cut from the woods;
LG1855	1201	No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
LG1855	1202	I have no chair, nor church nor philosophy;
LG1855	1203	I lead no man to a dinner-table or library or exchange,
LG1855	1204	But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
LG1855	1205	My left hand hooks you round the waist,
LG1855	1206	My right hand points to landscapes of continents, and a plain public road.
LG1855	1207	Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
LG1855	1208	You must travel it for yourself.
LG1855	1209	It is not far . . . . it is within reach,
LG1855	1210	Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know,
LG1855	1211	Perhaps it is every where on water and on land.
LG1855	1212	Shoulder your duds, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth;
LG1855	1213	Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.
LG1855	1214	If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,
LG1855	1215	And in due time you shall repay the same service to me;
LG1855	1216	For after we start we never lie by again.
LG1855	1217	This day before dawn I ascended a hill and looked at the crowded heaven,
LG1855	1218	And I said to my spirit, When we become the enfolders of those orbs and the plea-surepleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be filled and satisfied then?
LG1855	1219	And my spirit said No, we level that lift to pass and continue beyond.
LG1855	1220	You are also asking me questions, and I hear you;
LG1855	1221	I answer that I cannot answer . . . . you must find out for yourself.
LG1855	1222	Sit awhile wayfarer,
LG1855	1223	Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink,
LG1855	1224	But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes I will certainly kiss you with my goodbye kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.
LG1855	1225	Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams,
LG1855	1226	Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
LG1855	1227	You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life
LG1855	1228	Long have you timidly waded, holding a plank by the shore,
LG1855	1229	Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
LG1855	1230	To jump off in the midst of the sea, and rise again and nod to me and shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.
LG1855	1231	I am the teacher of athletes,
LG1855	1232	He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,
LG1855	1233	He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
LG1855	1234	The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived power but in his own right,
LG1855	1235	Wicked, rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear,
LG1855	1236	Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak,
LG1855	1237	Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than a wound cuts,
LG1855	1238	First rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo,
LG1855	1239	Preferring scars and faces pitted with smallpox over all latherers and those that keep out of the sun.
LG1855	1240	I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?
LG1855	1241	I follow you whoever you are from the present hour;
LG1855	1242	My words itch at your ears till you understand them.
LG1855	1243	I do not say these things for a dollar, or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat;
LG1855	1244	It is you talking just as much as myself . . . . I act as the tongue of you,
LG1855	1245	It was tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened.
LG1855	1246	I swear I will never mention love or death inside a house,
LG1855	1247	And I swear I never will translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air.
LG1855	1248	If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore,
LG1855	1249	The nearest gnat is an explanation and a drop or the motion of waves a key,
LG1855	1250	The maul the oar and the handsaw second my words.
LG1855	1251	No shuttered room or school can commune with me,
LG1855	1252	But roughs and little children better than they.
LG1855	1253	The young mechanic is closest to me . . . . he knows me pretty well,
LG1855	1254	The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me with him all day,
LG1855	1255	The farmboy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice,
LG1855	1256	In vessels that sail my words must sail . . . . I go with fishermen and seamen, and love them,
LG1855	1257	My face rubs to the hunter's face when he lies down alone in his blanket,
LG1855	1258	The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon,
LG1855	1259	The young mother and old mother shall comprehend me,
LG1855	1260	The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they are,
LG1855	1261	They and all would resume what I have told them.
LG1855	1262	I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
LG1855	1263	And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
LG1855	1264	And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's-self is,
LG1855	1265	And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral, dressed in his shroud,
LG1855	1266	And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,
LG1855	1267	And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,
LG1855	1268	And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
LG1855	1269	And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe,
LG1855	1270	And any man or woman shall stand cool and supercilious before a million universes.
LG1855	1271	And I call to mankind, Be not curious about God,
LG1855	1272	For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
LG1855	1273	No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.
LG1855	1274	I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least,
LG1855	1275	Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
LG1855	1276	Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
LG1855	1277	I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
LG1855	1278	In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;
LG1855	1279	I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name,
LG1855	1280	And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come for-everforever and ever.
LG1855	1281	And as to you death, and you bitter hug of mortality . . . . it is idle to try to alarm me.
LG1855	1282	To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes,
LG1855	1283	I see the elderhand pressing receiving supporting,
LG1855	1284	I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors . . . . and mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape.
LG1855	1285	And as to you corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me,
LG1855	1286	I smell the white roses sweetscented and growing,
LG1855	1287	I reach to the leafy lips . . . . I reach to the polished breasts of melons.
LG1855	1288	And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,
LG1855	1289	No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.
LG1855	1290	I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,
LG1855	1291	O suns . . . . O grass of graves . . . . O perpetual transfers and promotions . . . . if you do not say anything how can I say anything?
LG1855	1292	Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,
LG1855	1293	Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight,
LG1855	1294	Toss, sparkles of day and dusk . . . . toss on the black stems that decay in the muck,
LG1855	1295	Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.
LG1855	1296	I ascend from the moon . . . . I ascend from the night,
LG1855	1297	And perceive of the ghastly glitter the sunbeams reflected,
LG1855	1298	And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or small.
LG1855	1299	There is that in me . . . . I do not know what it is . . . . but I know it is in me.
LG1855	1300	Wrenched and sweaty . . . . calm and cool then my body becomes;
LG1855	1301	I sleep . . . . I sleep long.
LG1855	1302	I do not know it . . . . it is without name . . . . it is a word unsaid,
LG1855	1303	It is not in any dictionary or utterance or symbol.
LG1855	1304	Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
LG1855	1305	To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.
LG1855	1306	Perhaps I might tell more . . . . Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.
LG1855	1307	Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
LG1855	1308	It is not chaos or death . . . . it is form and union and plan . . . . it is eternal life . . . . it is happiness.
LG1855	1309	The past and present wilt . . . . I have filled them and emptied them,
LG1855	1310	And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
LG1855	1311	Listener up there! Here you . . . . what have you to confide to me?
LG1855	1312	Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
LG1855	1313	Talk honestly, for no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.
LG1855	1314	Do I contradict myself?
LG1855	1315	Very well then . . . . I contradict myself;
LG1855	1316	I am large . . . . I contain multitudes.
LG1855	1317	I concentrate toward them that are nigh . . . . I wait on the door-slab.
LG1855	1318	Who has done his day's work and will soonest be through with his supper?
LG1855	1319	Who wishes to walk with me?
LG1855	1320	Will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?
LG1855	1321	The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me . . . . he complains of my gab and my loitering.
LG1855	1322	I too am not a bit tamed . . . . I too am untranslatable,
LG1855	1323	I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
LG1855	1324	The last scud of day holds back for me,
LG1855	1325	It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds,
LG1855	1326	It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
LG1855	1327	I depart as air . . . . I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
LG1855	1328	I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.
LG1855	1329	I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
LG1855	1330	If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
LG1855	1331	You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
LG1855	1332	But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
LG1855	1333	And filter and fibre your blood.
LG1855	1334	Failing to fetch me me at first keep encouraged,
LG1855	1335	Missing me one place search another,
LG1855	1336	I stop some where waiting for you
LG1855	1337	COME closer to me,
LG1855	1338	Push close my lovers and take the best I possess,
LG1855	1339	Yield closer and closer and give me the best you possess.
LG1855	1340	This is unfinished business with me . . . . how is it with you?
LG1855	1341	I was chilled with the cold types and cylinder and wet paper between us.
LG1855	1342	I pass so poorly with paper and types . . . . I must pass with the contact of bodies and souls.
LG1855	1343	I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking the touch of me . . . . I know that it is good for you to do so.
LG1855	1344	Were all educations practical and ornamental well displayed out of me, what would it amount to?
LG1855	1345	Were I as the head teacher or charitable proprietor or wise statesman, what would it amount to?
LG1855	1346	Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?
LG1855	1347	The learned and virtuous and benevolent, and the usual terms;
LG1855	1348	A man like me, and never the usual terms.
LG1855	1349	Neither a servant nor a master am I,
LG1855	1350	I take no sooner a large price than a small price . . . . I will have my own whoever enjoys me,
LG1855	1351	I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me.
LG1855	1352	If you are a workman or workwoman I stand as nigh as the nighest that works in the same shop,
LG1855	1353	If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend, I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend,
LG1855	1354	If your lover or husband or wife is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome;
LG1855	1355	If you have become degraded or ill, then I will become so for your sake;
LG1855	1356	If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I cannot remember my foolish and outlawed deeds?
LG1855	1357	If you carouse at the table I say I will carouse at the opposite side of the table;
LG1855	1358	If you meet some stranger in the street and love him or her, do I not often meet strangers in the street and love them?
LG1855	1359	If you see a good deal remarkable in me I see just as much remarkable in you.
LG1855	1360	Why what have you thought of yourself?
LG1855	1361	Is it you then that thought yourself less?
LG1855	1362	Is it you that thought the President greater than you? or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?
LG1855	1363	Because you are greasy or pimpled—or that you was once drunk, or a thief, or diseased, or rheumatic, or a prostitute—or are so now—or from frivolity or impotence—or that you are no scholar, and never saw your name in print . . . . do you give in that you are any less immortal?
LG1855	1364	Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable and untouching;
LG1855	1365	It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or no;
LG1855	1366	I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns . . . . audand see and hear you, and what you give and take;
LG1855	1367	What is there you cannot give and take?
LG1855	1368	I see not merely that you are polite or whitefaced . . . . married or single . . . . citizens of old states or citizens of new states . . . . eminent in some profession . . . . a lady or gentleman in a parlor . . . . or dressed in the jail uniform . . . . or pulpit uniform,
LG1855	1369	Not only the free Utahan, Kansian, or Arkansian . . . . not only the free Cuban . . . not merely the slave . . . . not Mexican native, or Flatfoot, or negro from Africa,
LG1855	1370	Iroquois eating the warflesh—fishtearer in his lair of rocks and sand . . . . Esquimaux in the dark cold snowhouse . . . . Chinese with his transverse eyes . . . . Bedowee—or wandering nomad—or tabounschik at the head of his droves,
LG1855	1371	Grown, half-grown, and babe—of this country and every country, indoors and out-doorsoutdoors I see . . . . and all else is behind or through them.
LG1855	1372	The wife—and she is not one jot less than the husband,
LG1855	1373	The daughter—and she is just as good as the son,
LG1855	1374	The mother—and she is every bit as much as the father.
LG1855	1375	Offspring of those not rich—boys apprenticed to trades,
LG1855	1376	Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms;
LG1855	1377	The naive . . . . the simple and hardy . . . . he going to the polls to vote . . . . he who has a good time, and he who has a bad time;
LG1855	1378	Mechanics, southerners, new arrivals, sailors, mano'warsmen, merchantmen, coast-erscoasters,
LG1855	1379	All these I see . . . . but nigher and farther the same I see;
LG1855	1380	None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escape me.
LG1855	1381	I bring what you much need, yet always have,
LG1855	1382	I bring not money or amours or dress or eating . . . . but I bring as good;
LG1855	1383	And send no agent or medium . . . . and offer no representative of value—but offer the value itself.
LG1855	1384	There is something that comes home to one now and perpetually,
LG1855	1385	It is not what is printed or preached or discussed . . . . it eludes discussion and print,
LG1855	1386	It is not to be put in a book . . . . it is not in this book,
LG1855	1387	It is for you whoever you are . . . . it is no farther from you than your hearing and sight are from you,
LG1855	1388	It is hinted by nearest and commonest and readiest . . . . it is not them, though it is endlessly provoked by them . . . . What is there ready and near you now?
LG1855	1389	You may read in many languages and read nothing about it;
LG1855	1390	You may read the President's message and read nothing about it there,
LG1855	1391	Nothing in the reports from the state department or treasury department . . . . or in the daily papers, or the weekly papers,
LG1855	1392	Or in the census returns or assessors' returns or prices current or any accounts of stock.
LG1855	1393	The sun and stars that float in the open air . . . . the appleshaped earth and we upon it . . . . surely the drift of them is something grand;
LG1855	1394	I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness,
LG1855	1395	And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation, or bon-mot or reconnoissance,
LG1855	1396	And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without luck must be a failure for us,
LG1855	1397	And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.
LG1855	1398	The light and shade—the curious sense of body and identity—the greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things—the endless pride and out-stretchingoutstretching of man—unspeakable joys and sorrows,
LG1855	1399	The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees . . . . and the wonders that fill each minute of time forever and each acre of surface and space forever,
LG1855	1400	Have you reckoned them as mainly for a trade or farmwork? or for the profits of a store? or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure or a lady's leisure?
LG1855	1401	Have you reckoned the landscape took substance and form that it might be painted in a picture?
LG1855	1402	Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung?
LG1855	1403	Or the attraction of gravity and the great laws and harmonious combinations and the fluids of the air as subjects for the savans?
LG1855	1404	Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts?
LG1855	1405	Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names?
LG1855	1406	Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables or agriculture itself?
LG1855	1407	Old institutions . . . . these arts libraries legends collections—and the practice handed along in manufactures . . . . will we rate them so high?
LG1855	1408	Will we rate our prudence and business so high? . . . . I have no objection,
LG1855	1409	I rate them as high as the highest . . . . but a child born of a woman and man I rate beyond all rate.
LG1855	1410	We thought our Union grand and our Constitution grand;
LG1855	1411	I do not say they are not grand and good—for they are,
LG1855	1412	I am this day just as much in love with them as you,
LG1855	1413	But I am eternally in love with you and with all my fellows upon the earth.
LG1855	1414	We consider the bibles and religions divine . . . . I do not say they are not divine,
LG1855	1415	I say they have all grown out of you and may grow out of you still,
LG1855	1416	It is not they who give the life . . . . it is you who give the life;
LG1855	1417	Leaves are not more shed from the trees or trees from the earth than they are shed out of you.
LG1855	1418	The sum of all known value and respect I add up in you whoever you are;
LG1855	1419	The President is up there in the White House for you . . . . it is not you who are here for him,
LG1855	1420	The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you . . . . not you here for them,
LG1855	1421	The Congress convenes every December for you,
LG1855	1422	Laws, courts, the forming of states, the charters of cities, the going and coming of commerce and mails are all for you.
LG1855	1423	All doctrines, all politics and civilization exurge from you,
LG1855	1424	All sculpture and monuments and anything inscribed anywhere are tallied in you,
LG1855	1425	The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reach is in you this hour—and myths and tales the same;
LG1855	1426	If you were not breathing and walking here where would they all be?
LG1855	1427	The most renowned poems would be ashes . . . . orations and plays would be vacuums.
LG1855	1428	All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it;
LG1855	1429	Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and cornices?
LG1855	1430	All music is what awakens from you when you are reminded by the instruments,
LG1855	1431	It is not the violins and the cornets . . . . it is not the oboe nor the beating drums— nor the notes of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza . . . . nor those of the men's chorus, nor those of the women's chorus,
LG1855	1432	It is nearer and farther than they.
LG1855	1433	Will the whole come back then?
LG1855	1434	Can each see the signs of the best by a look in the lookingglass? Is there nothing greater or more?
LG1855	1435	Does all sit there with you and here with me?
LG1855	1436	The old forever new things . . . . you foolish child! . . . . the closest simplest things —this moment with you,
LG1855	1437	Your person and every particle that relates to your person,
LG1855	1438	The pulses of your brain waiting their chance and encouragement at every deed or sight;
LG1855	1439	Anything you do in public by day, and anything you do in secret betweendays,
LG1855	1440	What is called right and what is called wrong . . . . what you behold or touch . . . . what causes your anger or wonder,
LG1855	1441	The anklechain of the slave, the bed of the bedhouse, the cards of the gambler, the plates of the forger;
LG1855	1442	What is seen or learned in the street, or intuitively learned,
LG1855	1443	What is learned in the public school—spelling, reading, writing and ciphering . . . . the blackboard and the teacher's diagrams:
LG1855	1444	The panes of the windows and all that appears through them . . . . the going forth in the morning and the aimless spending of the day;
LG1855	1445	(What is it that you made money? what is it that you got what you wanted?)
LG1855	1446	The usual routine . . . . the workshop, factory, yard, office, store, or desk;
LG1855	1447	The jaunt of hunting or fishing, or the life of hunting or fishing,
LG1855	1448	Pasturelife, foddering, milking and herding, and all the personnel and usages;
LG1855	1449	The plum-orchard and apple-orchard . . . . gardening . . seedlings, cuttings, flowers and vines,
LG1855	1450	Grains and manures . . marl, clay, loam . . the subsoil plough . . the shovel and pick and rake and hoe . . irrigation and draining;
LG1855	1451	The currycomb . . the horse-cloth . . the halter and bridle and bits . . the very wisps of straw,
LG1855	1452	The barn and barn-yard . . the bins and mangers . . the mows and racks:
LG1855	1453	Manufactures . . commerce . . engineering . . the building of cities, and every trade carried on there . . and the implements of every trade,
LG1855	1454	The anvil and tongs and hammer . . the axe and wedge . . the square and mitre and jointer and smoothingplane;
LG1855	1455	The plumbob and trowel and level . . the wall-scaffold, and the work of walls and ceilings . . or any mason-work:
LG1855	1456	The ship's compass . . the sailor's tarpaulin . . the stays and lanyards, and the ground-tackleground-tackle for anchoring or mooring,
LG1855	1457	The sloop's tiller . . the pilot's wheel and bell . . the yacht or fish-smack . . the great gay-pennanted three-hundred-foot steamboat under full headway, with her proud fat breasts and her delicate swift-flashing paddles;
LG1855	1458	The trail and line and hooks and sinkers . . the seine, and hauling the seine;
LG1855	1459	Smallarms and rifles . . . . the powder and shot and caps and wadding . . . . the ordnance for war . . . . the carriages:
LG1855	1460	Everyday objects . . . . the housechairs, the carpet, the bed and the counterpane of the bed, and him or her sleeping at night, and the wind blowing, and the indefi-niteindefinite noises:
LG1855	1461	The snowstorm or rainstorm . . . . the tow-trowsers . . . . the lodge-hut in the woods, and the still-hunt:
LG1855	1462	City and country . . fireplace and candle . . gaslight and heater and aqueduct;
LG1855	1463	The message of the governor, mayor, or chief of police . . . . the dishes of breakfast or dinner or supper;
LG1855	1464	The bunkroom, the fire-engine, the string-team, and the car or truck behind;
LG1855	1465	The paper I write on or you write on . . and every word we write . . and every cross and twirl of the pen . . and the curious way we write what we think . . . . yet very faintly;
LG1855	1466	The directory, the detector, the ledger . . . . the books in ranks or the bookshelves . . . . the clock attached to the wall,
LG1855	1467	The ring on your finger . . the lady's wristlet . . the hammers of stonebreakers or coppersmiths . . the druggist's vials and jars;
LG1855	1468	The etui of surgical instruments, and the etui of oculist's or aurist's instruments, or dentist's instruments;
LG1855	1469	Glassblowing, grinding of wheat and corn . . casting, and what is cast . . tinroofing, shingledressing,
LG1855	1470	Shipcarpentering, flagging of sidewalks by flaggers . . dockbuilding, fishcuring, ferry-ingferrying;
LG1855	1471	The pump, the piledriver, the great derrick . . the coalkiln and brickkiln,
LG1855	1472	Ironworks or whiteleadworks . . the sugarhouse . . steam-saws, and the great mills and factories;
LG1855	1473	The cottonbale . . the stevedore's hook . . the saw and buck of the sawyer . . the screen of the coalscreener . . the mould of the moulder . . the workingknife of the butcher;
LG1855	1474	The cylinder press . . the handpress . . the frisket and tympan . . the compositor's stick and rule,
LG1855	1475	The implements for daguerreotyping . . . . the tools of the rigger or grappler or sail-makersail-maker or blockmaker,
LG1855	1476	Goods of guttapercha or papiermache . . . . colors and brushes . . . . glaziers' im-plementsimplements,
LG1855	1477	The veneer and gluepot . . the confectioner's ornaments . . the decanter and glasses . . the shears and flatiron;
LG1855	1478	The awl and kneestrap . . the pint measure and quart measure . . the counter and stool . . the writingpen of quill or metal;
LG1855	1479	Billiards and tenpins . . . . the ladders and hanging ropes of the gymnasium, and the manly exercises;
LG1855	1480	The designs for wallpapers or oilcloths or carpets . . . . the fancies for goods for women . . . . the bookbinder's stamps;
LG1855	1481	Leatherdressing, coachmaking, boilermaking, ropetwisting, distilling, signpainting, limeburning, coopering, cottonpicking,
LG1855	1482	The walkingbeam of the steam-engine . . the throttle and governors, and the up and down rods,
LG1855	1483	Stavemachines and plainingmachines . . . . the cart of the carman . . the omnibus . . the ponderous dray;
LG1855	1484	The snowplough and two engines pushing it . . . . the ride in the express train of only one car . . . . the swift go through a howling storm:
LG1855	1485	The bearhunt or coonhunt . . . . the bonfire of shavings in the open lot in the city . . the crowd of children watching;
LG1855	1486	The blows of the fighting-man . . the upper cut and one-two-three;
LG1855	1487	The shopwindows . . . . the coffins in the sexton's wareroom . . . . the fruit on the fruitstand . . . . the beef on the butcher's stall,
LG1855	1488	The bread and cakes in the bakery . . . . the white and red pork in the pork-store;
LG1855	1489	The milliner's ribbons . . the dressmaker's patterns . . . . the tea-table . . the home-madehome-made sweetmeats:
LG1855	1490	The column of wants in the one-cent paper . . the news by telegraph . . . . the amusements and operas and shows:
LG1855	1491	The cotton and woolen and linen you wear . . . . the money you make and spend;
LG1855	1492	Your room and bedroom . . . . your piano-forte . . . . the stove and cookpans,
LG1855	1493	The house you live in . . . . the rent . . . . the other tenants . . . . the deposite in the savings-bank . . . . the trade at the grocery,
LG1855	1494	The pay on Saturday night . . . . the going home, and the purchases;
LG1855	1495	In them the heft of the heaviest . . . . in them far more than you estimated, and far less also,
LG1855	1496	In them, not yourself . . . . you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of estima-tionestimation,
LG1855	1497	In them your themes and hints and provokers . . if not, the whole earth has no themes or hints or provokers, and never had.
LG1855	1498	I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile . . . . I do not advise you to stop,
LG1855	1499	I do not say leadings you thought great are not great,
LG1855	1500	But I say that none lead to greater or sadder or happier than those lead to.
LG1855	1501	Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last,
LG1855	1502	In things best known to you finding the best or as good as the best,
LG1855	1503	In folks nearest to you finding also the sweetest and strongest and lovingest,
LG1855	1504	Happiness not in another place, but this place . . not for another hour, but this hour,
LG1855	1505	Man in the first you see or touch . . . . always in your friend or brother or nighest neighbor . . . . Woman in your mother or lover or wife,
LG1855	1506	And all else thus far known giving place to men and women.
LG1855	1507	When the psalm sings instead of the singer,
LG1855	1508	When the script preaches instead of the preacher,
LG1855	1509	When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk,
LG1855	1510	When the sacred vessels or the bits of the eucharist, or the lath and plast, procreate as effectually as the young silversmiths or bakers, or the masons in their overalls,
LG1855	1511	When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince,
LG1855	1512	When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the nightwatchman's daughter,
LG1855	1513	When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions,
LG1855	1514	I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women.
LG1855	1515	TO think of time . . . . to think through the retrospection,
LG1855	1516	To think of today . . and the ages continued henceforward.
LG1855	1517	Have you guessed you yourself would not continue? Have you dreaded those earth-beetles?
LG1855	1518	Have you feared the future would be nothing to you?
LG1855	1519	Is today nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?
LG1855	1520	If the future is nothing they are just as surely nothing.
LG1855	1521	To think that the sun rose in the east . . . . that men and women were flexible and real and alive . . . . that every thing was real and alive;
LG1855	1522	To think that you and I did not see feel think nor bear our part,
LG1855	1523	To think that we are now here and bear our part.
LG1855	1524	Not a day passes . . not a minute or second without an accouchement;
LG1855	1525	Not a day passes . . not a minute or second without a corpse.
LG1855	1526	When the dull nights are over, and the dull days also,
LG1855	1527	When the soreness of lying so much in bed is over,
LG1855	1528	When the physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible look for an answer,
LG1855	1529	When the children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters have been sent for,
LG1855	1530	When medicines stand unused on the shelf, and the camphor-smell has pervaded the rooms,
LG1855	1531	When the faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying,
LG1855	1532	When the twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,
LG1855	1533	When the breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases,
LG1855	1534	Then the corpse-limbs stretch on the bed, and the living look upon them,
LG1855	1535	They are palpable as the living are palpable.
LG1855	1536	The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight,
LG1855	1537	But without eyesight lingers a different living and looks curiously on the corpse.
LG1855	1538	To think that the rivers will come to flow, and the snow fall, and fruits ripen . . and act upon others as upon us now . . . . yet not act upon us;
LG1855	1539	To think of all these wonders of city and country . . and others taking great interest in them . . and we taking small interest in them.
LG1855	1540	To think how eager we are in building our houses,
LG1855	1541	To think others shall be just as eager . . and we quite indifferent.
LG1855	1542	I see one building the house that serves him a few years . . . . or seventy or eighty years at most;
LG1855	1543	I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.
LG1855	1544	Slowmoving and black lines creep over the whole earth . . . . they never cease . . . . they are the burial lines,
LG1855	1545	He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried.
LG1855	1546	Cold dash of waves at the ferrywharf,
LG1855	1547	Posh and ice in the river . . . . half-frozen mud in the streets,
LG1855	1548	A gray discouraged sky overhead . . . . the short last daylight of December,
LG1855	1549	A hearse and stages . . . . other vehicles give place,
LG1855	1550	The funeral of an old stagedriver . . . . the cortege mostly drivers.
LG1855	1551	Rapid the trot to the cemetery,
LG1855	1552	Duly rattles the deathbell . . . . the gate is passed . . . . the grave is halted at . . . . the living alight . . . . the hearse uncloses,
LG1855	1553	The coffin is lowered and settled . . . . the whip is laid on the coffin,
LG1855	1554	The earth is swiftly shovelled in . . . . a minute . . no one moves or speaks . . . . it is done,
LG1855	1555	He is decently put away . . . . is there anything more?
LG1855	1556	He was a goodfellow,
LG1855	1557	Freemouthed, quicktempered, not badlooking, able to take his own part,
LG1855	1558	Witty, sensitive to a slight, ready with life or death for a friend,
LG1855	1559	Fond of women, . . played some . . eat hearty and drank hearty,
LG1855	1560	Had known what it was to be flush . . grew lowspirited toward the last . . sickened . . was helped by a contribution,
LG1855	1561	Died aged forty-one years . . and that was his funeral.
LG1855	1562	Thumb extended or finger uplifted,
LG1855	1563	Apron, cape, gloves, strap . . . . wetweather clothes . . . . whip carefully chosen . . . . boss, spotter, starter, and hostler,
LG1855	1564	Somebody loafing on you, or you loafing on somebody . . . . headway . . . . man before and man behind,
LG1855	1565	Good day's work or bad day's work . . . . pet stock or mean stock . . . . first out or last out . . . . turning in at night,
LG1855	1566	To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers . . and he there takes no interest in them.
LG1855	1567	The markets, the government, the workingman's wages . . . . to think what account they are through our nights and days;
LG1855	1568	To think that other workingmen will make just as great account of them . . yet we make little or no account.
LG1855	1569	The vulgar and the refined . . . . what you call sin and what you call goodness . . to think how wide a difference;
LG1855	1570	To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond the difference.
LG1855	1571	To think how much pleasure there is!
LG1855	1572	Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? Have you pleasure from poems?
LG1855	1573	Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomina-tionnomination and election? or with your wife and family?
LG1855	1574	Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful ma-ternalmaternal cares?
LG1855	1575	These also flow onward to others . . . . you and I flow onward;
LG1855	1576	But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.
LG1855	1577	Your farm and profits and crops . . . . to think how engrossed you are;
LG1855	1578	To think there will still be farms and profits and crops . . yet for you of what avail?
LG1855	1579	What will be will be well—for what is is well,
LG1855	1580	To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.
LG1855	1581	The sky continues beautiful . . . . the pleasure of men with women shall never be sated . . nor the pleasure of women with men . . nor the pleasure from poems;
LG1855	1582	The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses—they are not phantasms . . they have weight and form and location;
LG1855	1583	The farms and profits and crops . . the markets and wages and government . . they also are not phantasms;
LG1855	1584	The difference between sin and goodness is no apparition;
LG1855	1585	The earth is not an echo . . . . man and his life and all the things of his life are well-consideredwell-considered.
LG1855	1586	You are not thrown to the winds . . you gather certainly and safely around yourself,
LG1855	1587	Yourself! Yourself! Yourself forever and ever!
LG1855	1588	It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father—it is to identify you,
LG1855	1589	It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided;
LG1855	1590	Something long preparing and formless is arrived and formed in you,
LG1855	1591	You are thenceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.
LG1855	1592	The threads that were spun are gathered . . . . the weft crosses the warp . . . . the pattern is systematic.
LG1855	1593	The preparations have every one been justified;
LG1855	1594	The orchestra have tuned their instruments sufficiently . . . . the baton has given the signal.
LG1855	1595	The guest that was coming . . . . he waited long for reasons . . . . he is now housed,
LG1855	1596	He is one of those who are beautiful and happy . . . . he is one of those that to look upon and be with is enough.
LG1855	1597	The law of the past cannot be eluded,
LG1855	1598	The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,
LG1855	1599	The law of the living cannot be eluded . . . . it is eternal,
LG1855	1600	The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,
LG1855	1601	The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,
LG1855	1602	The law of drunkards and informers and mean persons cannot be eluded.
LG1855	1603	Slowmoving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth,
LG1855	1604	Northerner goes carried and southerner goes carried . . . . and they on the Atlantic side and they on the Pacific, and they between, and all through the Mississippi country . . . . and all over the earth.
LG1855	1605	The great masters and kosmos are well as they go . . . . the heroes and good-doers are well,
LG1855	1606	The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious and distinguished may be well,
LG1855	1607	But there is more account than that . . . . there is strict account of all.
LG1855	1608	The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing,
LG1855	1609	The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
LG1855	1610	The common people of Europe are not nothing . . . . the American aborigines are not nothing,
LG1855	1611	A zambo or a foreheadless Crowfoot or a Camanche is not nothing,
LG1855	1612	The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing . . . . the murderer or mean person is not nothing,
LG1855	1613	The perpetual succession of shallow people are not nothing as they go,
LG1855	1614	The prostitute is not nothing . . . . the mocker of religion is not nothing as he goes.
LG1855	1615	I shall go with the rest . . . . we have satisfaction:
LG1855	1616	I have dreamed that we are not to be changed so much . . . . nor the law of us changed;
LG1855	1617	I have dreamed that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and past law,
LG1855	1618	And that murderers and drunkards and liars shall be under the present and past law;
LG1855	1619	For I have dreamed that the law they are under now is enough.
LG1855	1620	And I have dreamed that the satisfaction is not so much changed . . . . and that there is no life without satisfaction;
LG1855	1621	What is the earth? what are body and soul without satisfaction?
LG1855	1622	I shall go with the rest,
LG1855	1623	We cannot be stopped at a given point . . . . that is no satisfaction;
LG1855	1624	To show us a good thing or a few good things for a space of time—that is no satis-factionsatisfaction;
LG1855	1625	We must have the indestructible breed of the best, regardless of time.
LG1855	1626	If otherwise, all these things came but to ashes of dung;
LG1855	1627	If maggots and rats ended us, then suspicion and treachery and death.
LG1855	1628	Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death I should die now,
LG1855	1629	Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?
LG1855	1630	Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,
LG1855	1631	Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,
LG1855	1632	The whole universe indicates that it is good,
LG1855	1633	The past and the present indicate that it is good.
LG1855	1634	How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect is my soul!
LG1855	1635	How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!
LG1855	1636	What is called good is perfect, and what is called sin is just as perfect;
LG1855	1637	The vegetables and minerals are all perfect . . and the imponderable fluids are perfect;
LG1855	1638	Slowly and surely they have passed on to this, and slowly and surely they will yet pass on.
LG1855	1639	O my soul! if I realize you I have satisfaction,
LG1855	1640	Animals and vegetables! if I realize you I have satisfaction,
LG1855	1641	Laws of the earth and air! if I realize you I have satisfaction.
LG1855	1642	I cannot define my satisfaction . . yet it is so,
LG1855	1643	I cannot define my life . . yet it is so.
LG1855	1644	I swear I see now that every thing has an eternal soul!
LG1855	1645	The trees have, rooted in the ground . . . . the weeds of the sea have . . . . the animals.
LG1855	1646	I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
LG1855	1647	That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it,
LG1855	1648	And all preparation is for it . . and identity is for it . . and life and death are for it.
LG1855	1649	I WANDER all night in my vision,
LG1855	1650	Stepping with light feet . . . . swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping,
LG1855	1651	Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers;
LG1855	1652	Wandering and confused . . . . lost to myself . . . . ill-assorted . . . . contradictory,
LG1855	1653	Pausing and gazing and bending and stopping.
LG1855	1654	How solemn they look there, stretched and still;
LG1855	1655	How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles.
LG1855	1656	The wretched features of ennuyees, the white features of corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,
LG1855	1657	The gashed bodies on battlefields, the insane in their strong-doored rooms, the sacred idiots,
LG1855	1658	The newborn emerging from gates and the dying emerging from gates,
LG1855	1659	The night pervades them and enfolds them.
LG1855	1660	The married couple sleep calmly in their bed, he with his palm on the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of the husband,
LG1855	1661	The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,
LG1855	1662	The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,
LG1855	1663	And the mother sleeps with her little child carefully wrapped.
LG1855	1664	The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,
LG1855	1665	The prisoner sleeps well in the prison . . . . the runaway son sleeps,
LG1855	1666	The murderer that is to be hung next day . . . . how does he sleep?
LG1855	1667	And the murdered person . . . . how does he sleep?
LG1855	1668	The female that loves unrequited sleeps,
LG1855	1669	And the male that loves unrequited sleeps;
LG1855	1670	The head of the moneymaker that plotted all day sleeps,
LG1855	1671	And the enraged and treacherous dispositions sleep.
LG1855	1672	I stand with drooping eyes by the worstsuffering and restless,
LG1855	1673	I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them;
LG1855	1674	The restless sink in their beds . . . . they fitfully sleep.
LG1855	1675	The earth recedes from me into the night,
LG1855	1676	I saw that it was beautiful . . . . and I see that what is not the earth is beautiful.
LG1855	1677	I go from bedside to bedside . . . . I sleep close with the other sleepers, each in turn;
LG1855	1678	I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
LG1855	1679	And I become the other dreamers.
LG1855	1680	I am a dance . . . . Play up there! the fit is whirling me fast.
LG1855	1681	I am the everlaughing . . . . it is new moon and twilight,
LG1855	1682	I see the hiding of douceurs . . . . I see nimble ghosts whichever way I look,
LG1855	1683	Cache and cache again deep in the ground and sea, and where it is neither ground or sea.
LG1855	1684	Well do they do their jobs, those journeymen divine,
LG1855	1685	Only from me can they hide nothing and would not if they could;
LG1855	1686	I reckon I am their boss, and they make me a pet besides,
LG1855	1687	And surround me, and lead me and run ahead when I walk,
LG1855	1688	And lift their cunning covers and signify me with stretched arms, and resume the way;
LG1855	1689	Onward we move, a gay gang of blackguards with mirthshouting music and wild-flappingwild-flapping pennants of joy.
LG1855	1690	I am the actor and the actress . . . . the voter . . the politician,
LG1855	1691	The emigrant and the exile . . the criminal that stood in the box,
LG1855	1692	He who has been famous, and he who shall be famous after today,
LG1855	1693	The stammerer . . . . the wellformed person . . the wasted or feeble person.
LG1855	1694	I am she who adorned herself and folded her hair expectantly,
LG1855	1695	My truant lover has come and it is dark.
LG1855	1696	Double yourself and receive me darkness,
LG1855	1697	Receive me and my lover too . . . . he will not let me go without him.
LG1855	1698	I roll myself upon you as upon a bed . . . . I resign myself to the dusk.
LG1855	1699	He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover,
LG1855	1700	He rises with me silently from the bed.
LG1855	1701	Darkness you are gentler than my lover . . . . his flesh was sweaty and panting,
LG1855	1702	I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.
LG1855	1703	My hands are spread forth . . I pass them in all directions,
LG1855	1704	I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying.
LG1855	1705	Be careful, darkness . . . . already, what was it touched me?
LG1855	1706	I thought my lover had gone . . . . else darkness and he are one,
LG1855	1707	I hear the heart-beat . . . . I follow . . I fade away.
LG1855	1708	O hotcheeked and blushing! O foolish hectic!
LG1855	1709	O for pity's sake, no one must see me now! . . . . my clothes were stolen while I was abed,
LG1855	1710	Now I am thrust forth, where shall I run?
LG1855	1711	Pier that I saw dimly last night when I looked from the windows,
LG1855	1712	Pier out from the main, let me catch myself with you and stay . . . . I will not chafe you;
LG1855	1713	I feel ashamed to go naked about the world,
LG1855	1714	And am curious to know where my feet stand . . . . and what is this flooding me, childhood or manhood . . . . and the hunger that crosses the bridge between.
LG1855	1715	The cloth laps a first sweet eating and drinking,
LG1855	1716	Laps life-swelling yolks . . . . laps ear of rose-corn, milky and just ripened:
LG1855	1717	The white teeth stay, and the boss-tooth advances in darkness,
LG1855	1718	And liquor is spilled on lips and bosoms by touching glasses, and the best liquor afterward.
LG1855	1719	I descend my western course . . . . my sinews are flaccid,
LG1855	1720	Perfume and youth course through me, and I am their wake.
LG1855	1721	It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's,
LG1855	1722	I sit low in a strawbottom chair and carefully darn my grandson's stockings.
LG1855	1723	It is I too . . . . the sleepless widow looking out on the winter midnight,
LG1855	1724	I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.
LG1855	1725	A shroud I see—and I am the shroud . . . . I wrap a body and lie in the coffin;
LG1855	1726	It is dark here underground . . . . it is not evil or pain here . . . . it is blank here, for reasons.
LG1855	1727	It seems to me that everything in the light and air ought to be happy;
LG1855	1728	Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.
LG1855	1729	I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies of the sea,
LG1855	1730	His brown hair lies close and even to his head . . . . he strikes out with courageous arms . . . . he urges himself with his legs.
LG1855	1731	I see his white body . . . . I see his undaunted eyes;
LG1855	1732	I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him headforemost on the rocks.
LG1855	1733	What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves?
LG1855	1734	Will you kill the courageous giant? Will you kill him in the prime of his middle age?
LG1855	1735	Steady and long he struggles;
LG1855	1736	He is baffled and banged and bruised . . . . he holds out while his strength holds out,
LG1855	1737	The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood . . . . they bear him away . . . . they roll him and swing him and turn him:
LG1855	1738	His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies . . . . it is continually bruised on rocks,
LG1855	1739	Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.
LG1855	1740	I turn but do not extricate myself;
LG1855	1741	Confused . . . . a pastreading . . . . another, but with darkness yet.
LG1855	1742	The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind . . . . the wreck-guns sound,
LG1855	1743	The tempest lulls and the moon comes floundering through the drifts.
LG1855	1744	I look where the ship helplessly heads end on . . . . I hear the burst as she strikes . . I hear the howls of dismay . . . . they grow fainter and fainter.
LG1855	1745	I cannot aid with my wringing fingers;
LG1855	1746	I can but rush to the surf and let it drench me and freeze upon me.
LG1855	1747	I search with the crowd . . . . not one of the company is washed to us alive;
LG1855	1748	In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in a barn.
LG1855	1749	Now of the old war-days . . the defeat at Brooklyn;
LG1855	1750	Washington stands inside the lines . . he stands on the entrenched hills amid a crowd of officers,
LG1855	1751	His face is cold and damp . . . . he cannot repress the weeping drops . . . . he lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes . . . . the color is blanched from his cheeks,
LG1855	1752	He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him by their parents.
LG1855	1753	The same at last and at last when peace is declared,
LG1855	1754	He stands in the room of the old tavern . . . . the wellbeloved soldiers all pass through,
LG1855	1755	The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns,
LG1855	1756	The chief encircles their necks with his arm and kisses them on the cheek,
LG1855	1757	He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another . . . . he shakes hands and bids goodbye to the army.
LG1855	1758	Now I tell what my mother told me today as we sat at dinner together,
LG1855	1759	Of when she was a nearly grown girl living home with her parents on the old home-steadhomestead.
LG1855	1760	A red squaw came one breakfasttime to the old homestead,
LG1855	1761	On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rushbottoming chairs;
LG1855	1762	Her hair straight shiny coarse black and profuse halfenveloped her face,
LG1855	1763	Her step was free and elastic . . . . her voice sounded exquisitely as she spoke.
LG1855	1764	My mother looked in delight and amazement at the stranger,
LG1855	1765	She looked at the beauty of her tallborne face and full and pliant limbs,
LG1855	1766	The more she looked upon her she loved her,
LG1855	1767	Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity;
LG1855	1768	She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace . . . . she cooked food for her,
LG1855	1769	She had no work to give her but she gave her remembrance and fondness.
LG1855	1770	The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of the afternoon she went away;
LG1855	1771	O my mother was loth to have her go away,
LG1855	1772	All the week she thought of her . . . . she watched for her many a month,
LG1855	1773	She remembered her many a winter and many a summer,
LG1855	1774	But the red squaw never came nor was heard of there again.
LG1855	1775	Now Lucifer was not dead . . . . or if he was I am his sorrowful terrible heir;
LG1855	1776	I have been wronged . . . . I am oppressed . . . . I hate him that oppresses me,
LG1855	1777	I will either destroy him, or he shall release me.
LG1855	1778	Damn him! how he does defile me,
LG1855	1779	How he informs against my brother and sister and takes pay for their blood,
LG1855	1780	How he laughs when I look down the bend after the steamboat that carries away my woman.
LG1855	1781	Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale's bulk . . . . it seems mine,
LG1855	1782	Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, my tap is death.
LG1855	1783	A show of the summer softness . . . . a contact of something unseen . . . . an amour of the light and air;
LG1855	1784	I am jealous and overwhelmed with friendliness,
LG1855	1785	And will go gallivant with the light and the air myself,
LG1855	1786	And have an unseen something to be in contact with them also.
LG1855	1787	O love and summer! you are in the dreams and in me,
LG1855	1788	Autumn and winter are in the dreams . . . . the farmer goes with his thrift,
LG1855	1789	The droves and crops increase . . . . the barns are wellfilled.
LG1855	1790	Elements merge in the night . . . . ships make tacks in the dreams . . . . the sailor sails . . . . the exile returns home,
LG1855	1791	The fugitive returns unharmed . . . . the immigrant is back beyond months and years;
LG1855	1792	The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his childhood, with the wellknown neighbors and faces,
LG1855	1793	They warmly welcome him . . . . he is barefoot again . . . . he forgets he is welloff;
LG1855	1794	The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and Welchman voyage home . . and the native of the Mediterranean voyages home;
LG1855	1795	To every port of England and France and Spain enter wellfilled ships;
LG1855	1796	The Swiss foots it toward his hills . . . . the Prussian goes his way, and the Hungarian his way, and the Pole goes his way,
LG1855	1797	The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return.
LG1855	1798	The homeward bound and the outward bound,
LG1855	1799	The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuyee, the onanist, the female that loves unre-quitedunrequited, the moneymaker,
LG1855	1800	The actor and actress . . those through with their parts and those waiting to commence,
LG1855	1801	The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the nominee that is chosen and the nominee that has failed,
LG1855	1802	The great already known, and the great anytime after to day,
LG1855	1803	The stammerer, the sick, the perfectformed, the homely,
LG1855	1804	The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and sentenced him, the fluent lawyers, the jury, the audience,
LG1855	1805	The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red squaw,
LG1855	1806	The consumptive, the erysipalite, the idiot, he that is wronged,
LG1855	1807	The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark,
LG1855	1808	I swear they are averaged now . . . . one is no better than the other,
LG1855	1809	The night and sleep have likened them and restored them.
LG1855	1810	I swear they are all beautiful,
LG1855	1811	Every one that sleeps is beautiful . . . . every thing in the dim night is beautiful,
LG1855	1812	The wildest and bloodiest is over and all is peace.
LG1855	1813	Peace is always beautiful,
LG1855	1814	The myth of heaven indicates peace and night.
LG1855	1815	The myth of heaven indicates the soul;
LG1855	1816	The soul is always beautiful . . . . it appears more or it appears less . . . . it comes or lags behind,
LG1855	1817	It comes from its embowered garden and looks pleasantly on itself and encloses the world;
LG1855	1818	Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting, and perfect and clean the womb cohering,
LG1855	1819	The head wellgrown and proportioned and plumb, and the bowels and joints proportioned and plumb.
LG1855	1820	The soul is always beautiful,
LG1855	1821	The universe is duly in order . . . . every thing is in its place,
LG1855	1822	What is arrived is in its place, and what waits is in its place;
LG1855	1823	The twisted skull waits . . . . the watery or rotten blood waits,
LG1855	1824	The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child of the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard himself waits long,
LG1855	1825	The sleepers that lived and died wait . . . . the far advanced are to go on in their turns, and the far behind are to go on in their turns,
LG1855	1826	The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite . . . . they unite now.
LG1855	1827	The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,
LG1855	1828	They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from east to west as they lie un-clothedunclothed;
LG1855	1829	The Asiatic and African are hand in hand . . . . the European and American are hand in hand,
LG1855	1830	Learned and unlearned are hand in hand . . and male and female are hand in hand;
LG1855	1831	The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover . . . . they press close without lust . . . . his lips press her neck,
LG1855	1832	The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with measureless love . . . . and the son holds the father in his arms with measureless love,
LG1855	1833	The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of the daughter,
LG1855	1834	The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man . . . . friend is inarmed by friend,
LG1855	1835	The scholar kisses the teacher and the teacher kisses the scholar . . . . the wronged is made right,
LG1855	1836	The call of the slave is one with the master's call . . and the master salutes the slave,
LG1855	1837	The felon steps forth from the prison . . . . the insane becomes sane . . . . the suffer-ingsuffering of sick persons is relieved,
LG1855	1838	The sweatings and fevers stop . . the throat that was unsound is sound . . the lungs of the consumptive are resumed . . the poor distressed head is free,
LG1855	1839	The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother than ever,
LG1855	1840	Stiflings and passages open . . . . the paralysed become supple,
LG1855	1841	The swelled and convulsed and congested awake to themselves in condition,
LG1855	1842	They pass the invigoration of the night and the chemistry of the night and awake.
LG1855	1843	I too pass from the night;
LG1855	1844	I stay awhile away O night, but I return to you again and love you;
LG1855	1845	Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?
LG1855	1846	I am not afraid . . . . I have been well brought forward by you;
LG1855	1847	I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay so long:
LG1855	1848	I know not how I came of you, and I know not where I go with you . . . . but I know I came well and shall go well.
LG1855	1849	I will stop only a time with the night . . . . and rise betimes.
LG1855	1850	I will duly pass the day O my mother and duly return to you;
LG1855	1851	Not you will yield forth the dawn again more surely than you will yield forth me again,
LG1855	1852	Not the womb yields the babe in its time more surely than I shall be yielded from you in my time.
LG1855	1853	THE bodies of men and women engirth me, and I engirth them,
LG1855	1854	They will not let me off nor I them till I go with them and respond to them and love them.
LG1855	1855	Was it dreamed whether those who corrupted their own live bodies could conceal themselves?
LG1855	1856	And whether those who defiled the living were as bad as they who defiled the dead?
LG1855	1857	The expression of the body of man or woman balks account,
LG1855	1858	The male is perfect and that of the female is perfect.
LG1855	1859	The expression of a wellmade man appears not only in his face,
LG1855	1860	It is in his limbs and joints also . . . . it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
LG1855	1861	It is in his walk . . the carriage of his neck . . the flex of his waist and knees . . . . dress does not hide him,
LG1855	1862	The strong sweet supple quality he has strikes through the cotton and flannel;
LG1855	1863	To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem . . perhaps more,
LG1855	1864	You linger to see his back and the back of his neck and shoulderside.
LG1855	1865	The sprawl and fulness of babes . . . . the bosoms and heads of women . . . . the folds of their dress . . . . their style as we pass in the street . . . . the contour of their shape downwards;
LG1855	1866	The swimmer naked in the swimmingbath . . seen as he swims through the salt transparent greenshine, or lies on his back and rolls silently with the heave of the water;
LG1855	1867	Framers bare-armed framing a house . . hoisting the beams in their places . . or using the mallet and mortising-chisel,
LG1855	1868	The bending forward and backward of rowers in rowboats . . . . the horseman in his saddle;
LG1855	1869	Girls and mothers and housekeepers in all their exquisite offices,
LG1855	1870	The group of laborers seated at noontime with their open dinnerkettles, and their wives waiting,
LG1855	1871	The female soothing a child . . . . the farmer's daughter in the garden or cowyard,
LG1855	1872	The woodman rapidly swinging his axe in the woods . . . . the young fellow hoeing corn . . . . the sleighdriver guiding his six horses through the crowd,
LG1855	1873	The wrestle of wrestlers . . two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, goodnatured, nativeborn, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,
LG1855	1874	The coats vests and caps thrown down . . the embrace of love and resistance,
LG1855	1875	The upperhold and underhold—the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
LG1855	1876	The march of firemen in their own costumes—the play of the masculine muscle through cleansetting trowsers and waistbands,
LG1855	1877	The slow return from the fire . . . . the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again— the listening on the alert,
LG1855	1878	The natural perfect and varied attitudes . . . . the bent head, the curved neck, the counting:
LG1855	1879	Suchlike I love . . . . I loosen myself and pass freely . . . . and am at the mother's breast with the little child,
LG1855	1880	And swim with the swimmer, and wrestle with wrestlers, and march in line with the firemen, and pause and listen and count.
LG1855	1881	I knew a man . . . . he was a common farmer . . . . he was the father of five sons . . . and in them were the fathers of sons . . . and in them were the fathers of sons.
LG1855	1882	This man was of wonderful vigor and calmness and beauty of person;
LG1855	1883	The shape of his head, the richness and breadth of his manners, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes,
LG1855	1884	These I used to go and visit him to see . . . . He was wise also,
LG1855	1885	He was six feet tall . . . . he was over eighty years old . . . . his sons were massive clean bearded tanfaced and handsome,
LG1855	1886	They and his daughters loved him . . . all who saw him loved him . . . they did not love him by allowance . . . they loved him with personal love;
LG1855	1887	He drank water only . . . . the blood showed like scarlet through the clear brown skin of his face;
LG1855	1888	He was a frequent gunner and fisher . . . he sailed his boat himself . . . he had a fine one presented to him by a shipjoiner . . . . he had fowling-pieces, presented to him by men that loved him;
LG1855	1889	When he went with his five sons and many grandsons to hunt or fish you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
LG1855	1890	You would wish long and long to be with him . . . . you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
LG1855	1891	I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,
LG1855	1892	To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
LG1855	1893	To be surrounded by beautiful curious breathing laughing flesh is enough,
LG1855	1894	To pass among them . . to touch any one . . . . to rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment . . . . what is this then?
LG1855	1895	I do not ask any more delight . . . . I swim in it as in a sea.
LG1855	1896	There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them and in the contact and odor of them that pleases the soul well,
LG1855	1897	All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
LG1855	1898	This is the female form,
LG1855	1899	A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
LG1855	1900	It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
LG1855	1901	I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor . . . . all falls aside but myself and it,
LG1855	1902	Books, art, religion, time . . the visible and solid earth . . the atmosphere and the fringed clouds . . what was expected of heaven or feared of hell are now consumed,
LG1855	1903	Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it . . the response likewise ungovern-ableungovernable,
LG1855	1904	Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands—all diffused . . . . mine too diffused,
LG1855	1905	Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebb . . . . loveflesh swelling and deliciously aching,
LG1855	1906	Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous . . . . quivering jelly of love . . . white-blowwhite-blow and delirious juice,
LG1855	1907	Bridegroom-night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
LG1855	1908	Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
LG1855	1909	Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweetfleshed day.
LG1855	1910	This is the nucleus . . . after the child is born of woman the man is born of woman,
LG1855	1911	This is the bath of birth . . . this is the merge of small and large and the outlet again.
LG1855	1912	Be not ashamed women . . your privilege encloses the rest . . it is the exit of the rest,
LG1855	1913	You are the gates of the body and you are the gates of the soul.
LG1855	1914	The female contains all qualities and tempers them . . . . she is in her place . . . . she moves with perfect balance,
LG1855	1915	She is all things duly veiled . . . . she is both passive and active . . . . she is to con-ceiveconceive daughters as well as sons and sons as well as daughters.
LG1855	1916	As I see my soul reflected in nature . . . . as I see through a mist one with inexpress-ibleinexpressible completeness and beauty . . . . see the bent head and arms folded over the breast . . . . the female I see,
LG1855	1917	I see the bearer of the great fruit which is immortality . . . . the good thereof is not tasted by roues, and never can be.
LG1855	1918	The male is not less the soul, nor more . . . . he too is in his place,
LG1855	1919	He too is all qualities . . . . he is action and power . . . . the flush of the known universe is in him,
LG1855	1920	Scorn becomes him well and appetite and defiance become him well,
LG1855	1921	The fiercest largest passions . . bliss that is utmost and sorrow that is utmost be-comebecome him well . . . . pride is for him,
LG1855	1922	The fullspread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul;
LG1855	1923	Knowledge becomes him . . . . he likes it always . . . . he brings everything to the test of himself,
LG1855	1924	Whatever the survey . . whatever the sea and the sail, he strikes soundings at last only here,
LG1855	1925	Where else does he strike soundings except here?
LG1855	1926	The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred . . . . it is no matter who,
LG1855	1927	Is it a slave? Is it one of the dullfaced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
LG1855	1928	Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the welloff . . . . just as much as you,
LG1855	1929	Each has his or her place in the procession.
LG1855	1930	All is a procession,
LG1855	1931	The universe is a procession with measured and beautiful motion.
LG1855	1932	Do you know so much that you call the slave or the dullface ignorant?
LG1855	1933	Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight . . . and he or she has no right to a sight?
LG1855	1934	Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffused float, and the soil is on the surface and water runs and vegetation sprouts for you . . and not for him and her?
LG1855	1935	A slave at auction!
LG1855	1936	I help the auctioneer . . . . the sloven does not half know his business.
LG1855	1937	Gentlemen look on this curious creature,
LG1855	1938	Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for him,
LG1855	1939	For him the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
LG1855	1940	For him the revolving cycles truly and steadily rolled.
LG1855	1941	In that head the allbaffling brain,
LG1855	1942	In it and below it the making of the attributes of heroes.
LG1855	1943	Examine these limbs, red black or white . . . . they are very cunning in tendon and nerve;
LG1855	1944	They shall be stript that you may see them.
LG1855	1945	Exquisite senses, lifelit eyes, pluck, volition,
LG1855	1946	Flakes of breastmuscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, goodsized arms and legs,
LG1855	1947	And wonders within there yet.
LG1855	1948	Within there runs his blood . . . . the same old blood . . the same red running blood;
LG1855	1949	There swells and jets his heart . . . . There all passions and desires . . all reachings and aspirations:
LG1855	1950	Do you think they are not there because they are not expressed in parlors and lecture-rooms?
LG1855	1951	This is not only one man . . . . he is the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,
LG1855	1952	In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
LG1855	1953	Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
LG1855	1954	How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?
LG1855	1955	Who might you find you have come from yourself if you could trace back through the centuries?
LG1855	1956	A woman at auction,
LG1855	1957	She too is not only herself . . . . she is the teeming mother of mothers,
LG1855	1958	She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
LG1855	1959	Her daughters or their daughters' daughters . . who knows who shall mate with them?
LG1855	1960	Who knows through the centuries what heroes may come from them?
LG1855	1961	In them and of them natal love . . . . in them the divine mystery . . . . the same old beautiful mystery.
LG1855	1962	Have you ever loved a woman?
LG1855	1963	Your mother . . . . is she living? . . . . Have you been much with her? and has she been much with you?
LG1855	1964	Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?
LG1855	1965	If life and the soul are sacred the human body is sacred;
LG1855	1966	And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
LG1855	1967	And in man or woman a clean strong firmfibred body is beautiful as the most beautiful face.
LG1855	1968	Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
LG1855	1969	For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
LG1855	1970	Who degrades or defiles the living human body is cursed,
LG1855	1971	Who degrades or defiles the body of the dead is not more cursed.
LG1855	1972	SAUNTERING the pavement or riding the country byroad here then are faces,
LG1855	1973	Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality,
LG1855	1974	The spiritual prescient face, the always welcome common benevolent face,
LG1855	1975	The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges broad at the backtop,
LG1855	1976	The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows . . . . the shaved blanched faces of orthodox citizens,
LG1855	1977	The pure extravagant yearning questioning artist's face,
LG1855	1978	The welcome ugly face of some beautiful soul . . . . the handsome detested or despised face,
LG1855	1979	The sacred faces of infants . . . . the illuminated face of the mother of many children,
LG1855	1980	The face of an amour . . . . the face of veneration,
LG1855	1981	The face as of a dream . . . . the face of an immobile rock,
LG1855	1982	The face withdrawn of its good and bad . . a castrated face,
LG1855	1983	A wild hawk . . his wings clipped by the clipper,
LG1855	1984	A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder.
LG1855	1985	Sauntering the pavement or crossing the ceaseless ferry, here then are faces;
LG1855	1986	I see them and complain not and am content with all.
LG1855	1987	Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them their own finale?
LG1855	1988	This now is too lamentable a face for a man;
LG1855	1989	Some abject louse asking leave to be . . cringing for it,
LG1855	1990	Some milknosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig to its hole.
LG1855	1991	This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage;
LG1855	1992	Snakes nest in that mouth . . I hear the sibilant threat.
LG1855	1993	This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea,
LG1855	1994	Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go.
LG1855	1995	This is a face of bitter herbs . . . . this an emetic . . . . they need no label,
LG1855	1996	And more of the drugshelf . . laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog's lard.
LG1855	1997	This face is an epilepsy advertising and doing business . . . . its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry,
LG1855	1998	Its veins down the neck distend . . . . its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites,
LG1855	1999	Its teeth grit . . the palms of the hands are cut by the turned-in nails,
LG1855	2000	The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground while he speculates well.
LG1855	2001	This face is bitten by vermin and worms,
LG1855	2002	And this is some murderer's knife with a halfpulled scabbard.
LG1855	2003	This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee,
LG1855	2004	An unceasing deathbell tolls there.
LG1855	2005	Those are really men! . . . . the bosses and tufts of the great round globe!
LG1855	2006	Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creased and cadaverous march?
LG1855	2007	Well then you cannot trick me.
LG1855	2008	I see your rounded never-erased flow,
LG1855	2009	I see neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises.
LG1855	2010	Splay and twist as you like . . . . poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats,
LG1855	2011	You'll be unmuzzled . . . . you certainly will.
LG1855	2012	I saw the face of the most smeared and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum,
LG1855	2013	And I knew for my consolation what they knew not;
LG1855	2014	I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,
LG1855	2015	The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement;
LG1855	2016	And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,
LG1855	2017	And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and unharmed, every inch as good as myself.
LG1855	2018	The Lord advances and yet advances:
LG1855	2019	Always the shadow in front . . . . always the reached hand bringing up the laggards.
LG1855	2020	Out of this face emerge banners and horses . . . . O superb! . . . . I see what is coming,
LG1855	2021	I see the high pioneercaps . . . . I see the staves of runners clearing the way,
LG1855	2022	I hear victorious drums.
LG1855	2023	This face is a lifeboat;
LG1855	2024	This is the face commanding and bearded . . . . it asks no odds of the rest;
LG1855	2025	This face is flavored fruit ready for eating;
LG1855	2026	This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.
LG1855	2027	These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake,
LG1855	2028	They show their descent from the Master himself.
LG1855	2029	Off the word I have spoken I except not one . . . . red white or black, all are deific,
LG1855	2030	In each house is the ovum . . . . it comes forth after a thousand years.
LG1855	2031	Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me,
LG1855	2032	Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me;
LG1855	2033	I read the promise and patiently wait.
LG1855	2034	This is a fullgrown lily's face,
LG1855	2035	She speaks to the limber-hip'd man near the garden pickets,
LG1855	2036	Come here, she blushingly cries . . . . Come nigh to me limber-hip'd man and give me your finger and thumb,
LG1855	2037	Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you,
LG1855	2038	Fill me with albescent honey . . . . bend down to me,
LG1855	2039	Rub to me with your chafing beard . . rub to my breast and shoulders.
LG1855	2040	The old face of the mother of many children:
LG1855	2041	Whist! I am fully content.
LG1855	2042	Lulled and late is the smoke of the Sabbath morning,
LG1855	2043	It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences,
LG1855	2044	It hangs thin by the sassafras, the wildcherry and the catbrier under them.
LG1855	2045	I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree,
LG1855	2046	I heard what the run of poets were saying so long,
LG1855	2047	Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the water-blue.
LG1855	2048	Behold a woman!
LG1855	2049	She looks out from her quaker cap . . . . her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.
LG1855	2050	She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse,
LG1855	2051	The sun just shines on her old white head.
LG1855	2052	Her ample gown is of creamhued linen,
LG1855	2053	Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel.
LG1855	2054	The melodious character of the earth!
LG1855	2055	The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go!
LG1855	2056	The justified mother of men!
LG1855	2057	A YOUNG man came to me with a message from his brother,
LG1855	2058	How should the young man know the whether and when of his brother?
LG1855	2059	Tell him to send me the signs.
LG1855	2060	And I stood before the young man face to face, and took his right hand in my left hand and his left hand in my right hand,
LG1855	2061	And I answered for his brother and for men . . . . and I answered for the poet, and sent these signs.
LG1855	2062	Him all wait for . . . . him all yield up to . . . . his word is decisive and final,
LG1855	2063	Him they accept . . . . in him lave . . . . in him perceive themselves as amid light,
LG1855	2064	Him they immerse, and he immerses them.
LG1855	2065	Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people and animals,
LG1855	2066	The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean,
LG1855	2067	All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will buy,
LG1855	2068	The best farms. . . . . others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps,
LG1855	2069	The noblest and costliest cities . . . . others grading and building, and he domiciles there;
LG1855	2070	Nothing for any one but what is for him . . . . near and far are for him,
LG1855	2071	The ships in the offing . . . . the perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for any body.
LG1855	2072	He puts things in their attitudes,
LG1855	2073	He puts today out of himself with plasticity and love,
LG1855	2074	He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associ-ationsassociations employment and politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.
LG1855	2075	He is the answerer,
LG1855	2076	What can be answered he answers, and what cannot be answered he shows how it cannot be answered.
LG1855	2077	A man is a summons and challenge,
LG1855	2078	It is vain to skulk . . . . Do you hear that mocking and laughter? Do you hear the ironical echoes?
LG1855	2079	Books friendships philosophers priests action pleasure pride beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction;
LG1855	2080	He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also.
LG1855	2081	Whichever the sex . . . whatever the season or place he may go freshly and gently and safely by day or by night,
LG1855	2082	He has the passkey of hearts . . . . to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs.
LG1855	2083	His welcome is universal . . . . the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is,
LG1855	2084	The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.
LG1855	2085	Every existence has its idiom . . . . every thing has an idiom and tongue;
LG1855	2086	He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men . . and any man translates . . and any man translates himself also:
LG1855	2087	One part does not counteract another part . . . . He is the joiner . . he sees how they join.
LG1855	2088	He says indifferently and alike, How are you friend? to the President at his levee,
LG1855	2089	And he says Good day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugarfield;
LG1855	2090	And both understand him and know that his speech is right.
LG1855	2091	He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,
LG1855	2092	He walks among the Congress . . . . and one representative says to another, Here is our equal appearing and new.
LG1855	2093	Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
LG1855	2094	And the soldiers suppose him to be a captain . . . . and the sailors that he has followed the sea,
LG1855	2095	And the authors take him for an author . . . . and the artists for an artist,
LG1855	2096	And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them;
LG1855	2097	No matter what the work is, that he is one to follow it or has followed it,
LG1855	2098	No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there.
LG1855	2099	The English believe he comes of their English stock,
LG1855	2100	A Jew to the Jew he seems . . . . a Russ to the Russ . . . . usual and near . . removed from none.
LG1855	2101	Whoever he looks at in the traveler's coffeehouse claims him,
LG1855	2102	The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard is sure . . . . and the island Cuban is sure.
LG1855	2103	The engineer, the deckhand on the great lakes or on the Mississippi or St Law-renceLawrence or Sacramento or Hudson or Delaware claims him.
LG1855	2104	The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood,
LG1855	2105	The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of him . . . . he strangely transmutes them,
LG1855	2106	They are not vile any more . . . . they hardly know themselves, they are so grown.
LG1855	2107	You think it would be good to be the writer of melodious verses,
LG1855	2108	Well it would be good to be the writer of melodious verses;
LG1855	2109	But what are verses beyond the flowing character you could have? . . . . or beyond beautiful manners and behaviour?
LG1855	2110	Or beyond one manly or affectionate deed of an apprenticeboy? . . or old woman? . . or man that has been in prison or is likely to be in prison?
LG1855	2111	SUDDENLY out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,
LG1855	2112	Like lightning Europe le'pt forth . . . . half startled at itself,
LG1855	2113	Its feet upon the ashes and the rags . . . . Its hands tight to the throats of kings.
LG1855	2114	O hope and faith! O aching close of lives! O many a sickened heart!
LG1855	2115	Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.
LG1855	2116	And you, paid to defile the People . . . . you liars mark:
LG1855	2117	Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,
LG1855	2118	For court thieving in its manifold mean forms,
LG1855	2119	Worming from his simplicity the poor man's wages;
LG1855	2120	For many a promise sworn by royal lips, And broken, and laughed at in the breaking,
LG1855	2121	Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike of personal revenge . . or the heads of the nobles fall;
LG1855	2122	The People scorned the ferocity of kings.
LG1855	2123	But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the frightened rulers come back:
LG1855	2124	Each comes in state with his train . . . . hangman, priest and tax-gatherer . . . . soldier, lawyer, jailer and sycophant.
LG1855	2125	Yet behind all, lo, a Shape,
LG1855	2126	Vague as the night, draped interminably, head front and form in scarlet folds,
LG1855	2127	Whose face and eyes none may see,
LG1855	2128	Out of its robes only this . . . . the red robes, lifted by the arm,
LG1855	2129	One finger pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake appears.
LG1855	2130	Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves . . . . bloody corpses of young men:
LG1855	2131	The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily . . . . the bullets of princes are flying . . . . the creatures of power laugh aloud,
LG1855	2132	And all these things bear fruits . . . . and they are good.
LG1855	2133	Those corpses of young men,
LG1855	2134	Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets . . . those hearts pierced by the gray lead,
LG1855	2135	Cold and motionless as they seem . . live elsewhere with unslaughter'd vitality.
LG1855	2136	They live in other young men, O kings,
LG1855	2137	They live in brothers, again ready to defy you:
LG1855	2138	They were purified by death . . . . They were taught and exalted.
LG1855	2139	Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed for freedom . . . . in its turn to bear seed,
LG1855	2140	Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish.
LG1855	2141	Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,
LG1855	2142	But it stalks invisibly over the earth . . whispering counseling cautioning.
LG1855	2143	Liberty let others despair of you . . . . I never despair of you.
LG1855	2144	Is the house shut? Is the master away?
LG1855	2145	Nevertheless be ready . . . . be not weary of watching,
LG1855	2146	He will soon return . . . . his messengers come anon.
LG1855	2147	CLEAR the way there Jonathan!
LG1855	2148	Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon!
LG1855	2149	Way for the federal foot and dragoons . . . . and the phantoms afterward.
LG1855	2150	I rose this morning early to get betimes in Boston town;
LG1855	2151	Here's a good place at the corner . . . . I must stand and see the show.
LG1855	2152	I love to look on the stars and stripes . . . . I hope the fifes will play Yankee Doodle.
LG1855	2153	How bright shine the foremost with cutlasses,
LG1855	2154	Every man holds his revolver . . . . marching stiff through Boston town.
LG1855	2155	A fog follows . . . . antiques of the same come limping,
LG1855	2156	Some appear wooden-legged and some appear bandaged and bloodless.
LG1855	2157	Why this is a show! It has called the dead out of the earth,
LG1855	2158	The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see;
LG1855	2159	Uncountable phantoms gather by flank and rear of it,
LG1855	2160	Cocked hats of mothy mould and crutches made of mist,
LG1855	2161	Arms in slings and old men leaning on young men's shoulders.
LG1855	2162	What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare gums?
LG1855	2163	Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for firelocks, and level them?
LG1855	2164	If you blind your eyes with tears you will not see the President's marshal,
LG1855	2165	If you groan such groans you might balk the government cannon.
LG1855	2166	For shame old maniacs! . . . . Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white hair be;
LG1855	2167	Here gape your smart grandsons . . . . their wives gaze at them from the windows,
LG1855	2168	See how well-dressed . . . . see how orderly they conduct themselves.
LG1855	2169	Worse and worse . . . . Can't you stand it? Are you retreating?
LG1855	2170	Is this hour with the living too dead for you?
LG1855	2171	Retreat then! Pell-mell! . . . . Back to the hills, old limpers!
LG1855	2172	I do not think you belong here anyhow.
LG1855	2173	But there is one thing that belongs here . . . . Shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of Boston?
LG1855	2174	I will whisper it to the Mayor . . . . he shall send a committee to England,
LG1855	2175	They shall get a grant from the Parliament, and go with a cart to the royal vault.
LG1855	2176	Dig out King George's coffin . . . . unwrap him quick from the graveclothes . . . . box up his bones for a journey:
LG1855	2177	Find a swift Yankee clipper . . . . here is freight for you blackbellied clipper,
LG1855	2178	Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! . . . . steer straight toward Boston bay.
LG1855	2179	Now call the President's marshal again, and bring out the government cannon,
LG1855	2180	And fetch home the roarers from Congress, and make another procession and guard it with foot and dragoons.
LG1855	2181	Here is a centrepiece for them:
LG1855	2182	Look! all orderly citizens . . . . look from the windows women.
LG1855	2183	The committee open the box and set up the regal ribs and glue those that will not stay,
LG1855	2184	And clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.
LG1855	2185	You have got your revenge old buster! . . . . The crown is come to its own and more than its own.
LG1855	2186	Stick your hands in your pockets Jonathan . . . . you are a made man from this day,
LG1855	2187	You are mighty cute . . . . and here is one of your bargains.
LG1855	2188	THERE was a child went forth every day,
LG1855	2189	And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder or pity or love or dread, that object he became,
LG1855	2190	And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day . . . . or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
LG1855	2191	The early lilacs became part of this child,
LG1855	2192	And grass, and white and red morningglories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phœbe-bird,
LG1855	2193	And the March-born lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf, and the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-sidepond-side . . and the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there . . and the beautiful curious liquid . . and the water-plants with their graceful flat heads . . all became part of him.
LG1855	2194	And the field-sprouts of April and May became part of him . . . . wintergrain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and of the esculent roots of the garden,
LG1855	2195	And the appletrees covered with blossoms, and the fruit afterward . . . . and wood-berrieswood-berries . . and the commonest weeds by the road;
LG1855	2196	And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern whence he had lately risen,
LG1855	2197	And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school . . and the friendly boys that passed . . and the quarrelsome boys . . and the tidy and freshcheeked girls . . and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
LG1855	2198	And all the changes of city and country wherever he went.
LG1855	2199	His own parents . . he that had propelled the fatherstuff at night, and fathered him . . and she that conceived him in her womb and birthed him . . . . they gave this child more of themselves than that,
LG1855	2200	They gave him afterward every day . . . . they and of them became part of him.
LG1855	2201	The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the suppertable,
LG1855	2202	The mother with mild words . . . . clean her cap and gown . . . . a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by:
LG1855	2203	The father, strong, selfsufficient, manly, mean, angered, unjust,
LG1855	2204	The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
LG1855	2205	The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture . . . . the yearning and swelling heart,
LG1855	2206	Affection that will not be gainsayed . . . . The sense of what is real . . . . the thought if after all it should prove unreal,
LG1855	2207	The doubts of daytime and the doubts of nighttime . . . the curious whether and how,
LG1855	2208	Whether that which appears so is so . . . . Or is it all flashes and specks?
LG1855	2209	Men and women crowding fast in the streets . . if they are not flashes and specks what are they?
LG1855	2210	The streets themselves, and the facades of houses . . . . the goods in the windows,
LG1855	2211	Vehicles . . teams . . the tiered wharves, and the huge crossing at the ferries;
LG1855	2212	The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset . . . . the river between,
LG1855	2213	Shadows . . aureola and mist . . light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off,
LG1855	2214	The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide . . the little boat slacktowed astern,
LG1855	2215	The hurrying tumbling waves and quickbroken crests and slapping;
LG1855	2216	The strata of colored clouds . . . . the long bar of maroontint away solitary by itself . . . . the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
LG1855	2217	The horizon's edge, the flying seacrow, the fragrance of saltmarsh and shoremud;
LG1855	2218	These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes and will always go forth every day,
LG1855	2219	And these become of him or her that peruses them now.
LG1855	2220	WHO learns my lesson complete?
LG1855	2221	Boss and journeyman and apprentice? . . . . churchman and atheist?
LG1855	2222	The stupid and the wise thinker . . . . parents and offspring . . . . merchant and clerk and porter and customer . . . . editor, author, artist and schoolboy?
LG1855	2223	Draw nigh and commence,
LG1855	2224	It is no lesson . . . . it lets down the bars to a good lesson,
LG1855	2225	And that to another . . . . and every one to another still.
LG1855	2226	The great laws take and effuse without argument,
LG1855	2227	I am of the same style, for I am their friend,
LG1855	2228	I love them quits and quits . . . . I do not halt and make salaams.
LG1855	2229	I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons of things,
LG1855	2230	They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.
LG1855	2231	I cannot say to any person what I hear . . . . I cannot say it to myself . . . . it is very wonderful.
LG1855	2232	It is no little matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so exactly in its orbit forever and ever, without one jolt or the untruth of a single second;
LG1855	2233	I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years, nor ten decillions of years,
LG1855	2234	Nor planned and built one thing after another, as an architect plans and builds a house.
LG1855	2235	I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
LG1855	2236	Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,
LG1855	2237	Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me or any one else.
LG1855	2238	Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal,
LG1855	2239	I know it is wonderful . . . . but my eyesight is equally wonderful . . . . and how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful,
LG1855	2240	And how I was not palpable once but am now . . . . and was born on the last day of May 1819 . . . . and passed from a babe in the creeping trance of three summers and three winters to articulate and walk . . . . are all equally wonderful.
LG1855	2241	And that I grew six feet high . . . . and that I have become a man thirty-six years old in 1855 . . . . and that I am here anyhow—are all equally wonderful;
LG1855	2242	And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful:
LG1855	2243	And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,
LG1855	2244	And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be true is just as wonderful,
LG1855	2245	And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the earth is equally wonderful,
LG1855	2246	And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally wonderful.
LG1855	2247	Come I should like to hear you tell me what there is in yourself that is not just as wonderful,
LG1855	2248	And I should like to hear the name of anything between Sunday morning and Saturday night that is not just as wonderful.
LG1855	2249	GREAT are the myths . . . . I too delight in them,
LG1855	2250	Great are Adam and Eve . . . . I too look back and accept them;
LG1855	2251	Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors and priests.
LG1855	2252	Great is liberty! Great is equality! I am their follower,
LG1855	2253	Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft . . . . where you sail I sail,
LG1855	2254	Yours is the muscle of life or death . . . . yours is the perfect science . . . . in you I have absolute faith.
LG1855	2255	Great is today, and beautiful,
LG1855	2256	It is good to live in this age . . . . there never was any better.
LG1855	2257	Great are the plunges and throes and triumphs and falls of democracy,
LG1855	2258	Great the reformers with their lapses and screams,
LG1855	2259	Great the daring and venture of sailors on new explorations.
LG1855	2260	Great are yourself and myself,
LG1855	2261	We are just as good and bad as the oldest and youngest or any,
LG1855	2262	What the best and worst did we could do,
LG1855	2263	What they felt . . do not we feel it in ourselves?
LG1855	2264	What they wished . . do we not wish the same?
LG1855	2265	Great is youth, and equally great is old age . . . . great are the day and night;
LG1855	2266	Great is wealth and great is poverty . . . . great is expression and great is silence.
LG1855	2267	Youth large lusty and loving . . . . youth full of grace and force and fascination,
LG1855	2268	Do you know that old age may come after you with equal grace and force and fascination?
LG1855	2269	Day fullblown and splendid . . . . day of the immense sun, and action and ambition and laughter,
LG1855	2270	The night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness.
LG1855	2271	Wealth with the flush hand and fine clothes and hospitality:
LG1855	2272	But then the soul's wealth—which is candor and knowledge and pride and enfolding love:
LG1855	2273	Who goes for men and women showing poverty richer than wealth?
LG1855	2274	Expression of speech . . in what is written or said forget not that silence is also expressive,
LG1855	2275	That anguish as hot as the hottest and contempt as cold as the coldest may be with-outwithout words,
LG1855	2276	That the true adoration is likewise without words and without kneeling.
LG1855	2277	Great is the greatest nation . . the nation of clusters of equal nations.
LG1855	2278	Great is the earth, and the way it became what it is,
LG1855	2279	Do you imagine it is stopped at this? . . . . and the increase abandoned?
LG1855	2280	Understand then that it goes as far onward from this as this is from the times when it lay in covering waters and gases.
LG1855	2281	Great is the quality of truth in man,
LG1855	2282	The quality of truth in man supports itself through all changes,
LG1855	2283	It is inevitably in the man . . . . He and it are in love, and never leave each other.
LG1855	2284	The truth in man is no dictum . . . . it is vital as eyesight,
LG1855	2285	If there be any soul there is truth . . . . if there be man or woman there is truth . . . . If there be physical or moral there is truth,
LG1855	2286	If there be equilibrium or volition there is truth . . . . if there be things at all upon the earth there is truth.
LG1855	2287	O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determined to press the whole way toward you,
LG1855	2288	Sound your voice! I scale mountains or dive in the sea after you.
LG1855	2289	Great is language . . . . it is the mightiest of the sciences,
LG1855	2290	It is the fulness and color and form and diversity of the earth . . . . and of men and women . . . . and of all qualities and processes;
LG1855	2291	It is greater than wealth . . . . it is greater than buildings or ships or religions or paintings or music.
LG1855	2292	Great is the English speech . . . . What speech is so great as the English?
LG1855	2293	Great is the English brood . . . . What brood has so vast a destiny as the English?
LG1855	2294	It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new rule,
LG1855	2295	The new rule shall rule as the soul rules, and as the love and justice and equality that are in the soul rule.
LG1855	2296	Great is the law . . . . Great are the old few landmarks of the law . . . . they are the same in all times and shall not be disturbed.
LG1855	2297	Great are marriage, commerce, newspapers, books, freetrade, railroads, steamers, international mails and telegraphs and exchanges.
LG1855	2298	Great is Justice;
LG1855	2299	Justice is not settled by legislators and laws . . . . it is in the soul,
LG1855	2300	It cannot be varied by statutes any more than love or pride or the attraction of gravity can,
LG1855	2301	It is immutable . . it does not depend on majorities . . . . majorities or what not come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.
LG1855	2302	For justice are the grand natural lawyers and perfect judges . . . . it is in their souls,
LG1855	2303	It is well assorted . . . . they have not studied for nothing . . . . the great includes the less,
LG1855	2304	They rule on the highest grounds . . . . they oversee all eras and states and administrations,
LG1855	2305	The perfect judge fears nothing . . . . he could go front to front before God,
LG1855	2306	Before the perfect judge all shall stand back . . . . life and death shall stand back . . . . heaven and hell shall stand back.
LG1855	2307	Great is goodness;
LG1855	2308	I do not know what it is any more than I know what health is . . . . but I know it is great.
LG1855	2309	Great is wickedness . . . . I find I often admire it just as much as I admire good-nessgoodness:
LG1855	2310	Do you call that a paradox? It certainly is a paradox.
LG1855	2311	The eternal equilibrium of things is great, and the eternal overthrow of things is great,
LG1855	2312	And there is another paradox.
LG1855	2313	Great is life . . and real and mystical . . wherever and whoever,
LG1855	2314	Great is death . . . . Sure as life holds all parts together, death holds all parts together;
LG1855	2315	Sure as the stars return again after they merge in the light, death is great as life.