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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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SONG OF THE ANSWERER.
1
NOW list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer, |
To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine
before me.
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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?
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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,
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And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him
that answers for all, and send these signs.
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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,
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Him they immerse and he immerses them. |
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Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape,
people, animals,
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The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, (so
tell I my morning's romanza,)
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All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever money
will buy,
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The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably
reaps,
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The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building and
he domiciles there,
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Nothing for any one but what is for him, near and far are for him,
the ships in the offing,
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The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are
for anybody.
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He puts things in their attitudes, |
He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love, |
He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and
sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest
never shame them afterward, nor assume to command
them.
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What can be answer'd he answers, and what cannot be answer'd
he shows how it cannot be answer'd.
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A man is a summons and challenge, |
(It is vain to skulk—do you hear that mocking and laughter? do
you hear the ironical echoes?)
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Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride,
beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction,
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He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and
down also.
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Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly
and gently and safely by day or by night,
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He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying
of hands on the knobs.
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His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome
or universal than he is,
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The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed. |
Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue, |
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He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and
any man translates, and any man translates himself also,
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One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he
sees how they join.
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He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the
President at his levee,
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And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the
sugar-field,
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And both understand him and know that his speech is right. |
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.
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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,
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And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an
artist,
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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,
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No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and
sisters there.
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The English believe he comes of their English stock, |
A Jew to the Jew he seems, a Russ to the Russ, usual and near,
removed from none.
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Whoever he looks at in the traveler's coffee-house claims him, |
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, the German is sure, the Spaniard
is sure, and the island Cuban is sure,
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The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Missis-
sippi or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or Pau-
manok sound, claims him.
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The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood, |
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see
themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes them,
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They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they are
so grown.
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2
The indications and tally of time, |
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs, |
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Time, always without break, indicates itself in parts, |
What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant com-
pany of singers, and their words,
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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,
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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.
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The singers do not beget, only the Poet begets, |
The singers are welcom'd, understood, appear often enough, but
rare has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the
maker of poems, the Answerer,
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(Not every century nor every five centuries has contain'd such a
day, for all its names.)
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The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible
names, but the name of each of them is one of the singers,
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The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-
singer, night-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer, weird-singer,
or something else.
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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;
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The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers
and fathers,
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The words of true poems are the tuft and final applause of science. |
Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, rudeness
of body, withdrawnness,
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Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness, such are some of the words of poems. |
The sailor and traveler underlie the makers of poems, the Answerer, |
The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist, all
these underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer.
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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,
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They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes, |
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They do not seek beauty, they are sought, |
Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing,
fain, love-sick.
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They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the
outset,
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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,
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To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless
rings and never be quiet again.
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