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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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WITH ANTECEDENTS.
1
With my fathers and mothers and the accumulations of past
ages,
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With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I
am,
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With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome, |
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb and the Saxon, |
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With antique maritime ventures, laws, artisanship, wars and jour-
neys,
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With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle, |
With the sale of slaves, with enthusiasts, with the troubadour, the
crusader, and the monk,
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With those old continents whence we have come to this new
continent,
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With the fading kingdoms and kings over there, |
With the fading religions and priests, |
With the small shores we look back to from our own large and
present shores,
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With countless years drawing themselves onward and arrived at
these years,
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You and me arrived—America arrived and making this year, |
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come. |
2
O but it is not the years—it is I, it is You, |
We touch all laws and tally all antecedents, |
We are the skald, the oracle, the monk and the knight, we easily
include them and more,
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We stand amid time beginningless and endless, we stand amid evil
and good,
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All swings around us, there is as much darkness as light, |
The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us, |
Its sun, and its again, all swing around us. |
As for me, (torn, stormy, amid these vehement days,) |
I have the idea of all, and am all and believe in all, |
I believe materialism is true and spiritualism is true, I reject no
part.
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(Have I forgotten any part? any thing in the past? |
Come to me whoever and whatever, till I give you recogni-
tion.)
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I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews, |
I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god, |
I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without
exception,
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I assert that all past days were what they must have been, |
And that they could no-how have been better than they were, |
And that to-day is what it must be, and that America is, |
And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they
are.
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3
In the name of these States and in your and my name, the
Past,
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And in the name of these States and in your and my name, the
Present time.
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I know that the past was great and the future will be great, |
And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time, |
(For the sake of him I typify, for the common average man's
sake, your sake if you are he,)
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And that where I am or you are this present day, there is the
centre of all days, all races,
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And there is the meaning to us of all that has ever come of races
and days, or ever will come.
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