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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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ME IMPERTURBE.
| ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, |
Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the midst
of irrational things,
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| Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they, |
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles,
crimes, less important than I thought;
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Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all these
subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the best
—I am not subordinate;)
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Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or
the Tennessee, or far north, or inland,
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A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life
of These States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or
Kanada,
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Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for
contingencies!
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O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents,
rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
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