BOOK XV

If you stand at work in a shop I stand as nigh as the nighest 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, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome, If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake,

If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw'd deeds? If you carouse at the table I carouse at the opposite side of the table, If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why I often meet strangers in the street and love them.

( Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or a thief, Or that you are diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a prostitute, 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? )

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 ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades,

Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms, Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants, All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see, None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me.

There is something that comes to one now and perpetually, It is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed, it eludes discussion and print, It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this book, It is for you whoever you are, it is no farther from you than your hearing and sight are from you,

It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest, it is ever provoked by them. You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it, You may read the President's message and read nothing about it there, Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or in the daily papers or weekly papers,

Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of stock. The sun and stars that float in the open air, The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them is something grand, I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness,

And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation or bon-mot or reconnoissance, And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without luck must be a failure for us, And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency. The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things,

The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows, The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the wonders that fill each minute of time forever, What have you reckon'd them for, camerado? Have you reckon'd them for your trade or farm-work? or for the profits of your store?

Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure, or a lady's leisure? We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand, I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are, I am this day just as much in love with them as you,

Then I am in love with You, and with all my fellows upon the earth. We consider bibles and religions divine — I do not say they are not divine, I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still, It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life,

Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed out of you. The sum of all known reverence I add up in you whoever you are, The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them,

The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you, Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the going and coming of commerce and malls, are all for you. List close my scholars dear, Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you,

Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you, The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reach is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same, If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be? The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays would be vacuums.

Strange and hard that paradox true I give, Objects gross and the unseen soul are one. In that and them the heft of the heaviest — in that and them far more than you estimated, ( and far less also,) In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me,

In them, not yourself-you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of estimation, In them the development good — in them all themes, hints, possibilities. Will you seek afar off? you surely come back at last, In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best,

In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest, Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place, not for another hour but this hour, Man in the first you see or touch, always in friend, brother, nighest neighbor — woman in mother, sister, wife, The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere,

You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine and strong life, And all else giving place to men and women like you. When the psalm sings instead of the singer, When the script preaches instead of the preacher,

When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk, When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, and when they touch my body back again, When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince, When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's daughter,

When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you.