Quote for the Week

The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

–William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, Preface

Daily Whitman

Song of the Open Road

3
  You air that serves me with breath to speak!
  You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!
  You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
  You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
  I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.

  You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!
  You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined
      side! you distant ships!
  You rows of houses! you window-pierc'd facades! you roofs!
  You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
  You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!
  You doors and ascending steps! you arches!
  You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
  From all that has touch'd you I believe you have imparted to
      yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,
  From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces,
      and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.

Daily Whitman

Song of the Open Road

 2
  You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all
      that is here,
  I believe that much unseen is also here.

  Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial,
  The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas'd, the
      illiterate person, are not denied;
  The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, the
      drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,
  The escaped youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,
  The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the
      town, the return back from the town,
  They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can be interdicted,
  None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me.

Some Scandinavian Psychedelic Psytrance Music for the Weekend

Stubborn Highlanders Revisited, and Antinomies of Pure Reason

Aam still thinkin’ abit it.

We’ve been discussing free will in the context of universalism.  The notion put forth by defenders of the Traditional View of Hell (TVOH) in recent times has tried to defend God from charges of wantonly tossing people to damnation by asserting that the damned damn themselves.  That is, those who choose against God, who choose to reject Him, voluntarily remove themselves from His presence.  This removal from God’s presence is Hell.  To the objection that they would surely change their minds sooner or later, the assertion is made that it is possible to reject God permanently, that is, to make an irrevocable decision from free will.  For one to assert a universalist view–that all will ultimately be saved–one must argue that no such irrevocable decision, at least regarding Hell, is possible.  This possibility of eternally irrevocable choices is what we’ve been looking at.

Let’s briefly sum up what we’ve decided thus far.  Some argue that in the afterlife time as we know it no longer applies to saved or damned souls, and thus that their choices are not irrevocable over countless aeons, but rather made once and for all in an eternal moment.  Against this, I’ve argued here and here that this can apply only to God Himself, and not to lesser beings, even immortal ones in the afterlife.  Therefore, I’ve focused on whether or not a choice, can, in fact, be eternally irrevocable.  I began that discussion here and elaborated here.  I’ve used the whimsical idea that Connor MacCleod, eponymous hero of the Highlander movies and guest star in the series, has vowed that he will never, ever eat a broccoli fudge sundae.  I’ve further specified that he is truly immortal–he will live not just for an unimaginably long time, but literally for all eternity.  Can he keep this vow?

Daily Whitman

BOOK VII

Song of the Open Road

       1
  Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
  Healthy, free, the world before me,
  The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

  Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
  Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
  Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
  Strong and content I travel the open road.

  The earth, that is sufficient,
  I do not want the constellations any nearer,
  I know they are very well where they are,
  I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

  (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
  I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
  I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
  I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)

 

Daily Whitman: Index

This is the complete index to the various poems in Leaves of Grass, which I am publishing as my “Daily Whitman” series.  Enjoy!

Leaves of Grass (Intro)	Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone	Song for All Seas, All Ships 2	This Compost 2	Years of the Modern
Book I. Inscriptions One’s-Self I Sing	Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes	Patroling Barnegat	To a Foil’dEuropeanRevolutionaire	Ashes of Soldiers
As I Ponder’d In Silence	Trickle Drops	After the Sea-Ship	Unnamed Land	Thoughts 1
In Cabin’d Ships at Sea	City of Orgies	Book XX. By the Roadside A Boston Ballad [1854]	Song of Prudence	Thoughts 2
To Foreign Lands	Behold This Swarthy Face	Europe (the 72nd and 73rdYears of These States)	The Singer in the Prison 1	Song at Sunset
To a Historian	I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing	A Hand-Mirror	The Singer in the Prison 2	As at Thy Portals Also Death
To Thee Old Cause	To a Stranger	Gods	The Singer in the Prison 3	My Legacy
Eidolons	This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful	Germs	Warble for Lilac-Time	Pensive on Her Dead Gazing
For Him I Sing	I Hear It Was Charged Against Me	Thoughts	Outlines for a Tomb (G. P., Buried 1870) 1	Camps of Green
When I Read the Book	The Prairie-Grass Dividing	Perfections	Outlines for a Tomb (G. P., Buried 1870) 2	The Sobbing of the Bells [Midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881]
Beginning My Studies	When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame	O Me!  O Life!	Outlines for a Tomb (G. P., Buried 1870) 3	As They Draw to a Close
Beginners	We Two Boys Together Clinging	To a President	Out from Behind This Mask (To Confront a Portrait) 1	Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
To the States	A Promise to California	I Sit and Look Out	Out from Behind This Mask (To Confront a Portrait) 2	The Untold Want
On Journeys Through the States	Here the Frailest Leaves of Me	To Rich Givers	Vocalism 1	Portals
To a Certain Cantatrice	No Labor-Saving Machine	The Dalliance of the Eagles	Vocalism 2	These Carols
Me Imperturbe	A Glimpse	Roaming in Thought (after Reading Hegel)	To Him That Was Crucified	Now Finale to the Shore
Savantism	A Leaf for Hand in Hand	A Farm Picture	You Felons on Trial in Courts	So Long!
The Ship Starting	Earth, My Likeness	A Child’s Amaze	Laws for Creations	Book XXXIV. Sands at Seventy Manahatta
I Hear America Singing	I Dream’d in a Dream	The Runner	To a Common Prostitute	Paumanok
What Place Is Besieged	What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?	Beautiful Women	I Was Looking a Long While	From Montauk Point
Still Though the One I Sing	To the East and to the West	Mother and Babe	Thought	To Those Who’ve Fail’d
Shut Not Your Doors	Sometimes with One I Love	Thought	Miracles	A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine
Poets to Come	To a Western Boy	Visor’d	Sparkles from the Wheel	The Bravest Soldiers
To You	Fast Anchor’dEternal O Love	Thought	To a Pupil	A Font of Type
Thou Reader	Among the Multitude	Gliding O’er All	Unfolded out of the Folds	As I Sit Writing Here
Book II Starting fromPaumanok 1	O You Whom I Often and Silently Come	Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour	What Am I After All	My Canary Bird
Starting fromPaumanok 2	That Shadow My Likeness	Thought	Kosmos	Queries to My Seventieth Year
Starting fromPaumanok 3	Full of Life Now	To Old Age	Others May Praise What They Like	The Wallabout Martyrs
Starting fromPaumanok 4	Book VI Salut au Monde! 1	Locations and Times	Who Learns My LessonComlete?	The First Dandelion
Starting fromPaumanok 5	Salut au Monde! 2	Offerings	Tests	America
Starting fromPaumanok 6	Salut au Monde! 3	To These States (to Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad)	The Torch	Memories
Starting fromPaumanok 7	Salut au Monde! 4	Book XXI. Drum-Taps First O Songs for a Prelude	O Star of France (1870-1871)	To-Day and Thee
Starting fromPaumanok 8	Salut au Monde! 5	Eighteen Sixty-One	The Ox-Tamer	After the Dazzle of Day
Starting fromPaumanok 9	Salut au Monde! 6	Beat! Beat!  Drums!	Wandering at Morn	Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809
Starting fromPaumanok 10	Salut au Monde! 7	From PaumanokStarting I Fly Like a Bird	With All Thy Gifts	Out of May’s Shows Selected
Starting fromPaumanok 11	Salut au Monde! 8	Song of the Banner at Daybreak	My Picture-Gallery	Halcyon Days
Starting fromPaumanok 12	Salut au Monde! 9	Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps	The Prairie States	FANCIES AT NAVESINK [I]
Starting fromPaumanok 13	Salut au Monde! 10	Virginia—The West	Book XXV Proud Music of the Storm 1	FANCIES AT NAVESINK [II]
Starting fromPaumanok 14	Salut au Monde! 11	City of Ships	Proud Music of the Storm 2	FANCIES AT NAVESINK [III]
Starting fromPaumanok 15	Salut au Monde! 12	The Centenarian’s Story	Proud Music of the Storm 3	FANCIES AT NAVESINK [IV]
Starting fromPaumanok 16	Salut au Monde! 13	Cavalry Crossing a Ford	Proud Music of the Storm 4	FANCIES AT NAVESINK [V]
Starting fromPaumanok 17	Book VII Song of the Open Road 1	Bivouac on a Mountain Side	Proud Music of the Storm 5	FANCIES AT NAVESINK [VI]
Starting fromPaumanok 18	Song of the Open Road 2	An Army Corps on the March	Proud Music of the Storm 6	FANCIES AT NAVESINK [VII]
Starting fromPaumanok 19	Song of the Open Road 3	By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame	Book XXVI Passage to India 1	FANCIES AT NAVESINK [VIII]
Book III Song of Myself 1	Song of the Open Road 4	Come up from the Fields Father	Passage to India 2	Election Day, November, 1884
Song of Myself 2	Song of the Open Road 5	Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night	Passage to India 3	With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!
Song of Myself 3	Song of the Open Road 6	A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown	Passage to India 4	Death of General Grant
Song of Myself 4	Song of the Open Road 7	A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim	Passage to India 5	Red Jacket (From Aloft)
Song of Myself 5	Song of the Open Road 8	As Toilsome I Wander Virginia’s Woods	Passage to India 6	Washington’s Monument February, 1885
Song of Myself 6	Song of the Open Road 9	Not the Pilot	Passage to India 7	Of That Blithe Throat of Thine
Song of Myself 7	Song of the Open Road 10	Year that Trembled andReel’d Beneath Me	Passage to India 8	Broadway
Song of Myself 8	Song of the Open Road 11	The Wound-Dresser 1	Passage to India 9	To Get the Final Lilt of Songs
Song of Myself 9	Song of the Open Road 12	The Wound-Dresser 2	Book XXVII Prayer of Columbus	Old SaltKossabone
Song of Myself 10	Song of the Open Road 13	The Wound-Dresser 3	Book XXVIII The Sleepers 1	The Dead Tenor
Song of Myself 11	Song of the Open Road 14	The Wound-Dresser 4	The Sleepers 2	Continuities
Song of Myself 12	Song of the Open Road 15	Long, Too Long America	The Sleepers 3	Yonnondio
Song of Myself 13	Book VIII Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 1	Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun 1	The Sleepers 4	Life
Song of Myself 14	Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 2	Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun 2	The Sleepers 5	“Going Somewhere”
Song of Myself 15	Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 3	Dirge for Two Veterans	The Sleepers 6	Small the Theme of My Chant
Song of Myself 16	Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 4	Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice	The Sleepers 7	True Conquerors
Song of Myself 17	Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 5	I Saw Old General at Bay	The Sleepers 8	The United States to Old World Critics
Song of Myself 18	Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 6	The Artilleryman’s Visions	Transpositions	The Calming Thought of All
Song of Myself 19	Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 7	Ethiopia Saluting the Colors	Book XXIX To Think of Time 1	Thanks in Old Age
Song of Myself 20	Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 8	Not Youth Pertains to Me	To Think of Time 2	Life and Death
Song of Myself 21	Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 9	Race of Veterans	To Think of Time 3	The Voice of the Rain
Song of Myself 22	Book IX Song of the Answerer 1	World Take Good Notice	To Think of Time 4	Soon Shall the Winter’s Foil Be Here
Song of Myself 23	Song of the Answerer 2	O Tan-Face Prarie-Boy	To Think of Time 5	While Not the Past Forgetting
Song of Myself 24	Book X Our OldFeuillage	Look Down Fair Moon	To Think of Time 6	The Dying Veteran
Song of Myself 25	Book XI A Song of Joys	Reconciliation	To Think of Time 7	Stronger Lessons
Song of Myself 26	Book XII Song of the Broad-Axe 1	How Solemn as One by One (Washington City,  1865)	To Think of Time 8	A Prairie Sunset
Song of Myself 27	Song of the Broad-Axe 2	As I Lay with My Head in Your LapCamerado	To Think of Time 9	Twenty Years
Song of Myself 28	Song of the Broad-Axe 3	Delicate Cluster	Book XXX. Whispers of Heavenly Death Darest Thou Now O Soul	Orange Buds by Mail from Florida
Song of Myself 29	Song of the Broad-Axe 4	To a Certain Civilian	Whispers of Heavenly Death	Twilight
Song of Myself 30	Song of the Broad-Axe 5	Lo, Victress on the Peak	Chanting the Square Deific 1	You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me
Song of Myself 31	Song of the Broad-Axe 6	Spirit Whose Work is Done (Washington City, 1865)	Chanting the Square Deific 2	Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone
Song of Myself 32	Song of the Broad-Axe 7	Adieu to a Soldier	Chanting the Square Deific 3	The Dead Emperor
Song of Myself 33	Song of the Broad-Axe 8	Turn O Libertad	Chanting the Square Deific 4	As the Greek’s Signal Flame
Song of Myself 34	Song of the Broad-Axe 9	To the Leaven’d Soil They Trod	Of Him I Love Day and Night	The Dismantled Ship
Song of Myself 35	Song of the Broad-Axe 10	Book XXII. Memories of President Lincoln When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 1	Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours	Now Precedent Songs, Farewell
Song of Myself 36	Song of the Broad-Axe 11	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 2	As If a PhantomCaress’d Me	An Evening Lull
Song of Myself 37	Song of the Broad-Axe 12	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 3	Assurances	Old Age’s Lambent Peaks
Song of Myself 38	Book XIII Song of the Exposition 1	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 4	Quicksand Years	After the Supper and Talk
Song of Myself 39	Song of the Exposition 2	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 5	That Music Always Round Me	Book XXXV. Good-Bye My Fancy Sail out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!
Song of Myself 40	Song of the Exposition 3	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 6	What Ship Puzzled at Sea	Lingering Last Drops
Song of Myself 41	Song of the Exposition 4	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 7	A Noiseless Patient Spider	Good-Bye My Fancy
Song of Myself 42	Song of the Exposition 5	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 8	O Living Always, Always Dying	On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!
Song of Myself 43	Song of the Exposition 6	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 9	To One Shortly to Die	My 71st Year
Song of Myself 44	Song of the Exposition 7	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 10	Night on the Praries	Apparitions
Song of Myself 45	Song of the Exposition 8	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 11	Thought	The Pallid Wreath
Song of Myself 46	Song of the Exposition 9	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 12	The Last Invocation	An Ended Day
Song of Myself 47	Book XIV Song of the Redwood-Tree 1	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 13	As I Watch the Ploughman Ploughing	Old Age’s Ship & Crafty Death’s
Song of Myself 48	Song of the Redwood-Tree 2	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 14	Pensive and Faltering	To the Pending Year
Song of Myself 49	Song of the Redwood-Tree 3	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 15	Book XXXI Thou Mother with Thy Equal Blood 1	Shakspere-Bacon’s Cipher
Song of Myself 50	Book XV A Song for Occupations 1	When Lilacs Last in the DooryardBloom’d 16	Thou Mother with Thy Equal Blood 2	Long, Long Hence
Song of Myself 51	A Song for Occupations 2	O Captain!  My Captain!	Thou Mother with Thy Equal Blood 3	Bravo, Paris Exposition!
Song of Myself 52	A Song for Occupations 3	Hush’d Be the Camps To-Day (May 4, 1865)	Thou Mother with Thy Equal Blood 4	Interpolation Sounds
Book IV. Children of Adam To the Garden of the World	A Song for Occupations 4	This Dust Was Once the Man	Thou Mother with Thy Equal Blood 5	To the Sun-SetBreeze
From Pent-Up Aching Rivers	A Song for Occupations 5	Book XXIII By Blue Ontario’s Shore 1	Thou Mother with Thy Equal Blood 6	Old Chants
I Sing the Body Electric 1	A Song for Occupations 6	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 2	A PaumanokPicture	A ChristmasGreeting
I Sing the Bod Electric 2	Book XVI A Song of the Rolling Earth 1	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 3	Book XXXII. From Noon to Starry Night Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling	Sounds of theWinter
I Sing the Body Electric 3	A Song of the Rolling Earth 2	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 4	Faces 1	A Twilight Song
I Sing the Body Electric 4	A Song of the Rolling Earth 3	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 5	Faces 2	When the Full-Grown Poet Came
I Sing the Body Electric 5	A Song of the Rolling Earth 4	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 6	Faces 3	Osceola
I Sing the Body Electric 6	Youth, Day, Old Age and Night	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 7	Faces 4	A Voice from Death
I Sing the Body Electric 7	Book XVII. Birds of Passage Song of the Universal 1	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 8	Faces 5	A Persian Lesson
I Sing the Body Electric 8	Song of the Universal 2	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 9	The Mystic Trumpeter 1	The Commonplace
I Sing the Body Electric 9	Song of the Universal 3	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 10	The Mystic Trumpeter 2	“The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete”
A Woman Waits for Me	Song of the Universal 4	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 11	The Mystic Trumpeter 3	Mirages
Spontaneous Me	Pioneers!  O Pioneers!	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 12	The Mystic Trumpeter 4	L. of G.’s Purport
One Hour to Madness and Joy	To You	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 13	The Mystic Trumpeter 5	TheUnexpress’d
Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd	France [the 18th Year of These States]	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 14	The Mystic Trumpeter 6	Grand Is the Seen
Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals	Myself and Mine	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 15	The Mystic Trumpeter 7	Unseen Buds
We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d	Year of Meteors (1859-60)	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 16	The Mystic Trumpeter 8	Good-Bye My Fancy!
O Hymen!  OHymenee!	With Antecedents 1	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 17	To a Locomotive in Winter
I Am He That Aches with Love	With Antecedents 2	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 18	O Magnet-South
Native Moments	With Antecedents 3	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 9	Manahatta
Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City	Book XVIII A Broadway Pageant 1	By Blue Ontario’s Shore 20	All Is Truth
I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ	A Broadway Pageant 2	Reversals	A Riddle Song
Facing West from California’s Shores	A Broadway Pageant 3	Book XXIV. Autumn Rivulets As Consequent, Etc.	Excelsior
As Adam Early in the Morning	Book XIX. Sea-Drift Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking	The Return of the Heroes 1	Ah Poverties,Wincings, and Sulky Retreats
Book V. Calamus In Paths Untrodden	As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life 1	The Return of the Heroes 2	Thoughts
Scented Herbage of My Breast	As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life 2	The Return of the Heroes 3	Mediums
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand	As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life 3	The Return of the Heroes 4	Weave in, My Hardy Life
For You, O Democracy	As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life 4	The Return of the Heroes 5	Spain, 1873-74
These I Singing in Splring	Tears	The Return of the Heroes 6	By Broad Potomac’s Shore
Not Heaving from My Ribb’d Breast Only	To the Man-of-War Bird	The Return of the Heroes 7	From Far Dakota’sCanyons [June 25, 1876]
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances	Aboard at a Ship’s Helm	The Return of the Heroes 8	Old War-Dreams
The Base of All Metaphysics	On the Beach at Night	There Was a Child Went Forth	Thick-SprinkledBunting
Recorders Ages Hence	The World below the Brine	Old Ireland	As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
When I Heard at the Close of the Day	On the Beach at Night Alone	The City Dead-House	A Clear Midnight
Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?	Song for All Seas, All Ships 1	This Compost 1	Book XXXIII. Songs of Parting As the Time Draws Nigh

Daily Whitman

Salut au Monde!

13

O vapors! I think I have risen with you, and moved away to distant continents, and fallen down there, for reasons;
I think I have blown with you, O winds;
O waters, I have finger’d every shore with you.

I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through;
I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas, and on the high embedded rocks, to cry thence.

Salut au monde!
What cities the light or warmth penetrates, I penetrate those cities myself;
All islands to which birds wing their way, I wing my way myself.

Toward all,
I raise high the perpendicular hand—I make the signal,
To remain after me in sight forever,
For all the haunts and homes of men.

Daily Whitman

Salut au Monde!

12

You Hottentot with clicking palate! You woolly-hair’d hordes!
You own’d persons, dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!
You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes!
I dare not refuse you—the scope of the world, and of time and space, are upon me.

You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon, for all your glimmering language and spirituality!
You low expiring aborigines of the hills of Utah, Oregon, California!
You dwarf’d Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lapp!
You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip, grovelling, seeking your food!
You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!
You haggard, uncouth, untutor’d, Bedowee!
You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!
You bather bathing in the Ganges!
You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Fejee-man!
You peon of Mexico! you slave of Carolina, Texas, Tennessee!
I do not prefer others so very much before you either;
I do not say one word against you, away back there, where you stand;
(You will come forward in due time to my side.)

My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the whole earth;
I have look’d for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all lands;
I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.

Daily Whitman

Salut au Monde!

11

You, whoever you are!
You daughter or son of England!
You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!
You dim-descended, black, divine-soul’d African, large, fine-headed, nobly-form’d, superbly destin’d, on equal terms with me!
You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!
You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!
You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!
You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands!
You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!
You neighbor of the Danube!
You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too!
You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!
You citizen of Prague! Roman! Neapolitan! Greek!
You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!
You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!
You Bokh horse-herd, watching your mares and stallions feeding!
You beautiful-bodied Persian, at full speed in the saddle, shooting arrows to the mark!
You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!
You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!
You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk, to stand once on Syrian ground!

You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!
You thoughtful Armenian, pondering by some stream of the Euphrates! you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending Mount Ararat!
You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets of Mecca!
You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb, ruling your families and tribes!
You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus, or Lake Tiberias!

You Thibet trader on the wide inland, or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!
You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo!
All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place!
All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!
And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me!
And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the same!
Health to you! Good will to you all—from me and America sent.

Each of us inevitable;
Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth;
Each of us allow’d the eternal purports of the earth;
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.