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Walt Whitman: Poems

Leaves of Grass: Links


1.

Think of the Soul;

I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to

live in other spheres;

I do not know how, but I know it is so.


2.

Think of loving and being loved;

I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such

things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly upon you.


3.

Think of the past;

I warn you that, in a little while, others will find their past in you and

your times.


The race is never separated--nor man nor woman escapes;

All is inextricable--things, spirits, nature, nations, you too--from

precedents you come.


Recall the ever-welcome defiers (the mothers precede them);

Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth;

Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons--brother of slaves, felons,

idiots, and of insane and diseased persons.


4.

Think of the time when you was not yet born;

Think of times you stood at the side of the dying;

Think of the time when your own body will be dying.


Think of spiritual results:

Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects

pass into spiritual results.


Think of manhood, and you to be a man;

Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?


Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;

The creation is womanhood;

Have I not said that womanhood involves all?

Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best

womanhood?

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