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A Song for Occupations.

A SONG FOR OCCUPATIONS.

1

A SONG for occupations! In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find  
 the developments,
And find the eternal meanings.
Workmen and Workwomen! Were all educations practical and ornamental well display'd out  
 of me, what would it amount to?
Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman, 
 what would it amount to?
Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that  
 satisfy you?
The learn'd, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms, A man like me and never the usual terms. Neither a servant nor a master I, I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have my  
 own whoever enjoys me,
I will be even with you and you shall be even with me.
  [ begin page 170 ]ppp.00707.178.jpg If you stand at work in a shop I stand as nigh as the nighest in  
 the same shop,
If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend I demand as  
 good as your brother or dearest friend,
If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must  
 be personally as welcome,
If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your  
 sake,
If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think  
 I cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw'd deeds?
If you carouse at the table I carouse at the opposite side of the  
 table,
If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why  
 I often meet strangers in the street and love them.
Why what have you thought of yourself? Is it you then that thought yourself less? Is it you that thought the President greater than you? Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you? (Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or a  
 thief,
Or that you are diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a prostitute, Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar and  
 never saw your name in print,
Do you give in that you are any less immortal?)

2

Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, 
 untouchable and untouching,
It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether  
 you are alive or no,
I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.
Grown, half-grown and babe, of this country and every country, in- 
 doors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see,
And all else behind or through them.
The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband, The daughter, and she is just as good as the son, The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father. Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades, Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms, Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants,   [ begin page 171 ]ppp.00707.179.jpg All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see, None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me. I bring what you much need yet always have, Not money, amours, dress, eating, erudition, but as good, I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but  
 offer the value itself.
There is something that comes to one now and perpetually, It is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed, it eludes discussion  
 and print,
It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this book, It is for you whoever you are, it is no farther from you than your  
 hearing and sight are from you,
It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest, it is ever provoked  
 by them.
You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it, You may read the President's message and read nothing about it  
 there,
Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury  
 department, or in the daily papers or weekly papers,
Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any  
 accounts of stock.

3

The sun and stars that float in the open air, The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them  
 is something grand,
I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is  
 happiness,
And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation or  
 bon-mot or reconnoissance,
And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for  
 us, and without luck must be a failure for us,
And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain  
 contingency.
The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the  
 greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things,
The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys  
 and sorrows,
The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the  
 wonders that fill each minute of time forever,
What have you reckon'd them for, camerado?   [ begin page 172 ]ppp.00707.180.jpg Have you reckon'd them for your trade or farm-work? or for the  
 profits of your store?
Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure, 
 or a lady's leisure?
Have you reckon'd that the landscape took substance and form  
 that it might be painted in a picture?
Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung? Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmonious  
 combinations and the fluids of the air, as subjects for the  
 savans?
Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts? Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names? Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or agricul- 
 ture itself?
Old institutions, these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and the  
 practice handed along in manufactures, will we rate them  
 so high?
Will we rate our cash and business high? I have no objection, I rate them as high as the highest—then a child born of a  
 woman and man I rate beyond all rate.
We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand, I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are, I am this day just as much in love with them as you, Then I am in love with You, and with all my fellows upon the  
 earth.
We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are  
 not divine,
I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you  
 still,
It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life, Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, 
 than they are shed out of you.

4

The sum of all known reverence I add up in you whoever you are, The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you  
 who are here for him,
The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them, The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you, Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the  
 going and coming of commerce and mails, are all for you.
  [ begin page 173 ]ppp.00707.181.jpg List close my scholars dear, Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are  
 tallied in you,
The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reach  
 is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same,
If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they  
 all be?
The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays  
 would be vacuums.
All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it, (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of  
 the arches and cornices?)
All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the  
 instruments,
It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the  
 beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing  
 his sweet romanza, nor that of the men's chorus, nor that  
 of the women's chorus,
It is nearer and farther than they.

5

Will the whole come back then? Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? is  
 there nothing greater or more?
Does all sit there with you, with the mystic unseen soul?
Strange and hard that paradox true I give, Objects gross and the unseen soul are one. House-building, measuring, sawing the boards, Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing, 
 shingle-dressing,
Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, flagging of sidewalks by  
 flaggers,
The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and  
 brick-kiln,
Coal-mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the darkness, 
 echoes, songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts  
 looking through smutch'd faces,
Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains or by river-banks, men  
 around feeling the melt with huge crowbars, lumps of ore, 
 the due combining of ore, limestone, coal,
  [ begin page 174 ]ppp.00707.182.jpg The blast-furnace and the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the  
 bottom of the melt at last, the rolling-mill, the stumpy  
 bars of pig-iron, the strong clean-shaped T-rail for rail- 
 roads,
Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam- 
 saws, the great mills and factories,
Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for façades or window or door- 
 lintels, the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the  
 thumb,
The calking-iron, the kettle of boiling vault-cement, and the fire  
 under the kettle,
The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of the  
 sawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working-knife of  
 the butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice,
The work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block- 
 maker,
Goods of gutta-percha, papier-maché, colors, brushes, brush- 
 making, glazier's implements,
The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, the  
 decanter and glasses, the shears and flat-iron,
The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the  
 counter and stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal, the  
 making of all sorts of edged tools,
The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing that is done  
 by brewers, wine-makers, vinegar-makers,
Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, dis- 
 tilling, sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking, electro- 
 plating, electrotyping, stereotyping,
Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, ploughing- 
 machines, thrashing-machines, steam wagons,
The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray, Pyrotechny, letting off color'd fireworks at night, fancy figures and  
 jets;
Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the  
 butcher in his killing-clothes,
The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the  
 scalder's tub, gutting, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's maul, 
 and the plenteous winterwork of pork-packing,
Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice, the barrels and  
 the half and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high  
 piles on wharves and levees,
The men and the work of the men on ferries, railroads, coasters, 
 fish-boats, canals;
The hourly routine of your own or any man's life, the shop, yard, 
 store, or factory,
  [ begin page 175 ]ppp.00707.183.jpg These shows all near you by day and night—workman! whoever  
 you are, your daily life!
In that and them the heft of the heaviest—in that and them far  
 more than you estimated, (and far less also,)
In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me, In them, not yourself—you and your soul enclose all things, re- 
 gardless of estimation,
In them the development good—in them all themes, hints, possi- 
 bilities.
I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile, I do not advise  
 you to stop,
I do not say leadings you thought great are not great, But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to.

6

Will you seek afar off? you surely come back at last, In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the  
 best,
In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest, Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place, not for  
 another hour but this hour,
Man in the first you see or touch, always in friend, brother, 
 nighest neighbor—woman in mother, sister, wife,
The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems  
 or anywhere,
You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own  
 divine and strong life,
And all else giving place to men and women like you.
When the psalm sings instead of the singer, When the script preaches instead of the preacher, When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that  
 carved the supporting desk,
When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, and  
 when they touch my body back again,
When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and  
 child convince,
When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's  
 daughter,
When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly  
 companions,
I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as  
 I do of men and women like you.
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