Selections from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself.
Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much?
Have you reckon’d the earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me
and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun,
(there are millions of suns left,)
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,
You shall not look through my eyes either,
nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
I have heard what the talkers were talking,
the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
This day before dawn I ascended a hill
and look’d at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my spirit
When we become the enfolders of those orbs,
and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them,
shall we be fill’d and satisfied then?
And my spirit said
No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.
You are also asking me questions and I hear you,
I answer that I cannot answer,
you must find out for yourself.
Each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents
and the public road.
Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.
It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born
and did not know,
Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.
Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine,
and let us hasten forth,
Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.
If you tire, give me both burdens,
and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,
And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,
For after we start we never lie by again.
The clock indicates the moment—
but what does eternity indicate?
I know perfectly well my own egotism,
Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less,
And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed,
and luckier.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall,
battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
All forces have been steadily employ’d
to complete and delight me,
Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me,
and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day
or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now,
or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?
It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one,
and still pass on.
And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each
am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much
I am at peace about God and about death.)
I hear and behold God in every object,
yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more
wonderful than myself.
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four,
and each moment then,
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me,
he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
In the faces of men and women I see God,
and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street,
And every one is sign’d by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are,
for I know that wheresoe’er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?
I follow you whoever you are from the present hour,
My words itch at your ears till you understand them.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.
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