Published Works

Books by Whitman

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THINK OF THE SOUL.

1THINK of the Soul;

I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to
your Soul somehow to live in other spheres;

I do not know how, but I know it is so.

2Think of loving and being loved;

I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse your-
self with such things that everybody that sees
you shall look longingly upon you.

3Think of the past;

I warn you that in a little while others will find their
past in you and your times.

4The race is never separated—nor man nor woman
escapes;

All is inextricable—things, spirits, Nature, nations, you
too—from precedents you come.

5Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers pre-
cede them;)

Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers, of
the earth;

Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother of
slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseas'd
persons.

6Think of the time when you were not yet born;

Think of times you stood at the side of the dying;

Think of the time when your own body will be dying.

7Think of spiritual results,

Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every
one of its objects pass into spiritual results.

8Think of manhood, and you to be a man;

Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood,
nothing?

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Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;

The creation is womanhood;

Have I not said that womanhood involves all?

Have I not told how the universe has nothing better
than the best womanhood?

Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price, editors.