Leaves of Grass | Page 7

these States that no one State may under any
circumstances be subjected to another State,
And I will make a song that there shall be
comity by day and by
night between all the States, and between any two of them, And I will make a song for
the ears of the President, full of
weapons with menacing points,
And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces;


And a song make I of the One form'd out of all,
The fang'd and glittering One whose
head is over all,
Resolute warlike One including and over all,
(However high the head
of any else that head is over all.)
I will acknowledge contemporary lands,
I will trail the whole geography of the globe
and salute courteously
every city large and small,
And employments! I will put in my poems that with you is
heroism
upon land and sea,
And I will report all heroism from an American point of view.
I will sing the song of companionship,
I will show what alone must finally compact
these,
I believe these are to found their own ideal of manly love,
indicating it in me,
I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were
threatening to consume me,
I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering
fires, I will give them complete abandonment,
I will write the evangel-poem of
comrades and of love,
For who but I should understand love with all its sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?
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I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races,
I advance from the people in their
own spirit,
Here is what sings unrestricted faith.
Omnes! omnes! let others ignore what they may,
I make the poem of evil also, I
commemorate that part also, I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is--and
I say
there is in fact no evil,
(Or if there is I say it is just as important to you, to the land or
to me, as any thing else.)
I too, following many and follow'd by many, inaugurate a religion, I
descend into the arena,
(It may be I am destin'd to utter the loudest cries there, the
winner's pealing shouts,
Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above every
thing.)
Each is not for its own sake,
I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for
religion's sake.
I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough,
None has ever yet adored or
worship'd half enough,
None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how
certain

the future is.
I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be
their religion,
Otherwise there is just no real and permanent grandeur;
(Nor character
nor life worthy the name without religion,
Nor land nor man or woman without
religion.)
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What are you doing young man?
Are you so earnest, so given up to literature,
science, art, amours? These ostensible realities, politics, points?
Your ambition or
business whatever it may be?
It is well--against such I say not a word, I am their poet also, But behold! such swiftly
subside, burnt up for religion's sake, For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame,
the essential
life of the earth,
Any more than such are to religion.
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What do you seek so pensive and silent?
What do you need camerado?
Dear son
do you think it is love?
Listen dear son--listen America, daughter or son,
It is a painful thing to love a man or
woman to excess, and yet it
satisfies, it is great,
But there is something else very great, it makes the whole coincide,
It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands sweeps and
provides for all.
10
Know you, solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater religion, The following
chants each for its kind I sing.
My comrade!
For you to share with me two greatnesses, and a third one rising
inclusive and more resplendent,
The greatness of Love and Democracy, and the
greatness of Religion.
Melange mine own, the unseen and the seen,
Mysterious ocean where the streams
empty,
Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me, Living beings,
identities now doubtless near us in the air that we
know not of,
Contact daily and hourly that will not release me,
These selecting, these
in hints demanded of me.
Not he with a daily kiss onward from childhood kissing me,
Has winded and twisted
around me that which holds me to him, Any more than I am held to the heavens and all

the spiritual world, After what they have done to me, suggesting themes.
O such themes--equalities! O divine average!
Warblings under the sun, usher'd as now,
or at noon, or setting, Strains musical flowing through ages, now reaching hither,
I take
to your reckless and composite chords, add to them, and
cheerfully pass them forward.
11
As I have walk'd in Alabama my morning walk,
I