A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother, How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother? Tell him to send me the signs. And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand and his left hand in my right hand, And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all, and send these signs.
Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and final, Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light, Him they immerse and he immerses them. Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people, animals,
The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, ( so tell I my morning's romanza,) All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever money will buy, The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably reaps, The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building and he domiciles there,
Nothing for any one but what is for him, near and far are for him, the ships in the offing, The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for anybody. He walks with perfect ease in the capitol, He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another,
Here is our equal appearing and new. Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow'd the sea, And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,
And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them, No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it or has follow'd it, No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there. The indications and tally of time,
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs, Time, always without break, indicates itself in parts, What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their words, The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark, but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark,
The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality, His insight and power encircle things and the human race, He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the human race. All this time and at all times wait the words of true poems,
The words of true poems do not merely please, The true poets are not followers of beauty but the august masters of beauty; The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and fathers, The words of true poems are the tuft and final applause of science.
The words of the true poems give you more than poems, They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing else, They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes, They do not seek beauty, they are sought,
Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick. They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset, They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full, Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the meanings,
To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again.
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