Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.
Perhaps I might tell more . . . . Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.
Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death . . . . it is form and union and plan . . . . it is eternal life . . . . it is happiness.
The past and present wilt . . . . I have filled them and emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! Here you . . . . what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
Talk honestly, for no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then . . . . I contradict myself;
I am large . . . . I contain multitudes.
I concentrate toward them that are nigh . . . . I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day’s work and will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
Will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?
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.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air . . . . I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
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 some where waiting for you
A Song for Occupations (1855)
Come closer to me,
Push close my lovers and take the best I possess,
Yield closer and closer and give me the best you possess.
This is unfinished business with me . . . . how is it with you?
I was chilled with the cold types and cylinder and wet paper between us.
I pass so poorly with paper and types . . . . I must pass with the contact of bodies and souls.
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.
Were all educations practical and ornamental well displayed out of me, what would it amount to?
Were I as the head teacher or charitable proprietor or wise statesman, what would it amount to?
Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?
The learned and virtuous and benevolent, and the usual terms;
A man like me, and never the usual terms.
Neither a servant nor a master am I,
I take no sooner a large price than a small price . . . . I will have my own whoever enjoys me,
I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me.
If you are a workman or workwoman I stand as nigh as the nighest that works in the same shop,
If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend, I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend,
If your lover or husband or wife is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome;
If you have become degraded or ill, then I will become so for your sake;
If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I cannot remember my foolish and outlawed deeds?
If you carouse at the table I say I will carouse at the opposite side of the table;
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?
If you see a good deal remarkable in me I see just as much remarkable in you.
Why what have you thought of yourself?
Is it you then that thought yourself less?
Is it you that thought the President greater than you? or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?
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?
Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable and untouching;
It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or no;
I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns . . . . and see and hear you, and what you give and take;
What is there you cannot give and take?
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,
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,
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,
Grown, half-grown, and babe -- of this country and every country, indoors and outdoors I see . . . . and all else is behind or through them.
The wife -- and she is not one jot less than the husband,
The daughter -- and she is just as good as the son,
The mother -- and she is every bit as much as the father.
Offspring of those not rich -- boys apprenticed to trades,
Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms;
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;
Mechanics, southerners, new arrivals, sailors, mano’warsmen, merchantmen, coasters,
All these I see . . . . but nigher and farther the same I see;
None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escape me.
I bring what you much need, yet always have,
I bring not money or amours or dress or eating . . . . but I bring as good;