OVER divine and perfect Comrade, tain, Be thou my God Thou, thou, the Ideal Man, Fair, able, beautiful, content and loving. O Death (for Life has served its turn), Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion, Be thou my God Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive or know, (To break the Stagnant tie-thee, thee to free, O Soul) Be thou my God All great ideas, the races' aspirations, All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts. Or Time and Space, Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous, AFROT FOOT and light-hearted I take to the open road, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road. THIS HIS day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven, And I said to my spirit, “When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, we shall be fill'd and satisfied then?" And my spirit said, "No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond." ASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly PAS I look upon you, You must be he i was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes to me as of a dream), I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured, You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me, I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands in return, I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone, I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I THINK I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. WERE ERE mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister? I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me, All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamen tation. (What have I to do with lamentation?) I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I am encloser of things to be s☛☛ HAVE said that the soul is not more than the body, soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is, And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud, And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth, And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times, And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero, And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe, And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, For I who am curious about each am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at God and about death) peace about I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself do Why should I wish to see God better than this day I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass ☛☛ There is that in me-I do not know what it is-but I know it is in meo do ND the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps. A What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? DO They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. All goes forward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier FIND letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that whereso'er I go, Others will punctually come for ever and ever. |