Skip to main content

Chants Democratic and Native American 6

6.

1YOU just maturing youth! You male or female! Remember the organic compact of These States, Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thence- 
 forward to the rights, life, liberty, equality of  
 man,
Remember what was promulged by the founders, rat- 
 ified by The States, signed in black and white by  
 the Commissioners, and read by Washington at  
 the head of the army,
Remember the purpose of the founders,—Remember  
 Washington;
Remember the copious humanity streaming from every  
 direction toward America;
Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations and  
 men; (Cursed be nation, woman, man, without  
 hospitality!)
Remember, government is to subserve individuals,   [ begin page 172 ]ppp.01500.180.jpg Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more  
 than you or me,
Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less  
 than you or me.
2Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to be- 
 come the hundred, or two hundred millions, of  
 equal freemen and freewomen, amicably joined.
3Recall ages—One age is but a part—ages are but a  
 part;
Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions,  
 of the idea of caste,
Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.
4Anticipate the best women; I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well- 
 defined women are to spread through all These  
 States,
I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable,  
 dauntless, just the same as a boy.
5Anticipate your own life—retract with merciless  
 power,
Shirk nothing—retract in time—Do you see those  
 errors, diseases, weaknesses, lies, thefts?
Do you see that lost character?—Do you see de- 
 cay, consumption, rum-drinking, dropsy, fever,  
 mortal cancer or inflammation?
Do you see death, and the approach of death?
6Think 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.
  [ begin page 173 ]ppp.01500.181.jpg 7Think of loving and being loved; I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse  
 yourself with such things that everybody that sees  
 you shall look longingly upon you.
8Think of the past; I warn you that in a little while, others will find their  
 past in you and your times.
9The race is never separated—nor man nor woman  
 escapes,
All is inextricable—things, spirits, nature, nations,  
 you too—from precedents you come.
10Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precede  
 them;)
Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, lawgivers,  
 of the earth,
Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother  
 of slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseased  
 persons.
11Think of the time when you was 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. 12Think of spiritual results, Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does  
 every one of its objects pass into spiritual results.
13Think of manhood, and you to be a man; Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood,  
 nothing?
15*   [ begin page 174 ]ppp.01500.182.jpg 14Think 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?
Back to top