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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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MYSELF AND MINE.
MYSELF and mine gymnastic ever, |
To stand the cold or heat, to take good aim with a gun, to sail a
boat, to manage horses, to beget superb children,
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To speak readily and clearly, to feel at home among common
people,
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And to hold our own in terrible positions on land and sea. |
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers, I welcome them also,) |
But for the fibre of things and for inherent men and women. |
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous
supreme Gods, that the States may realize them walking
and talking.
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Let others promulge the laws, I will make no account of the laws, |
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace, I hold up
agitation and conflict,
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I praise no eminent man, I rebuke to his face the one that was
thought most worthy.
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(Who are you? and what are you secretly guilty of all your life? |
Will you turn aside all your life? will you grub and chatter all
your life?
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And who are you, blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages,
reminiscences,
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View Page 190
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Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak properly a
single word?)
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Let others finish specimens, I never finish specimens, |
I start them by exhaustless laws as Nature does, fresh and modern
continually.
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I give nothing as duties, |
What others give as duties I give as living impulses, |
(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?) |
Let others dispose of questions, I dispose of nothing, I arouse
unanswerable questions,
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Who are they I see and touch, and what about them? |
What about these likes of myself that draw me so close by tender
directions and indirections?
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I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but
listen to my enemies, as I myself do,
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I charge you forever reject those who would expound me, for I
cannot expound myself,
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I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me, |
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free. |
O I see life is not short, but immeasurably long, |
I henceforth tread the world chaste, temperate, an early riser, a
steady grower,
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Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries. |
I must follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth, |
I perceive I have no time to lose. |
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