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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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WHO LEARNS MY LESSON COMPLETE?
WHO learns my lesson complete? |
Boss, journeyman, apprentice, churchman and atheist, |
The stupid and the wise thinker, parents and offspring, merchant,
clerk, porter and customer,
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Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—draw nigh and commence; |
It is no lesson—it lets down the bars to a good lesson, |
And that to another, and every one to another still. |
The great laws take and effuse without argument, |
I am of the same style, for I am their friend, |
I love them quits and quits, I do not halt and make salaams. |
I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons
of things,
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They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen. |
I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot say it to myself
—it is very wonderful.
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It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe moving so
exactly in its orbit for ever and ever, without one jolt or the
untruth of a single second,
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I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years,
nor ten billions of years,
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Nor plann'd and built one thing after another as an architect
plans and builds a house.
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I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman, |
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman, |
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else. |
Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is im-
mortal;
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I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and
how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally
wonderful,
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And pass'd from a babe in the creeping trance of a couple of
summers and winters to articulate and walk—all this is
equally wonderful.
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And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each
other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to
see each other, is every bit as wonderful.
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And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful, |
And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them
to be true, is just as wonderful.
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And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the earth, is
equally wonderful,
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And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally
wonderful.
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