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Leaves of Grass (1856)
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23—Poem of Remembrances for A Girl or A Boy of These States.
REMEMBER the organic compact of These
States!
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Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thence-
forward to the rights, life, liberty, equality, of
man!
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Remember what was promulged by the founders,
ratified by The States, signed in black and
white by the Commissioners, read by Wash-
ington at the head of the army!
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Remember the purposes of the founders!—Re-
member Washington!
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Remember the copious humanity streaming from
every direction toward America!
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Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations
and men!—(Cursed be nation, woman, man,
without hospitality!)
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| Remember, government is to subserve individuals! |
Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more
than you or me,
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Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less
than you or me.
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Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions are to
become the hundred, or two hundred, or five
hundred millions, of equal freemen and free-
women, amicably joined.
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Recall ages—One age is but a part—ages are
but a part,
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Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, supersti-
tions of the idea of caste,
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| Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes. |
| Anticipate the best women! |
I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-
defined women are to spread through all
These States,
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I say a girl fit for These States must be free,
capable, dauntless, just the same as a boy.
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Anticipate your own life—retract with merciless
power,
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Shirk nothing—retract in time—Do you see those
errors, diseases, weaknesses, lies, thefts?
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Do you see that lost character?—Do you see
decay, consumption, rum-drinking, dropsy,
fever, mortal cancer or inflammation?
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| Do you see death, and the approach of death? |
I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions
to your soul somehow to live in other spheres,
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| I do not know how, but I know it is so. |
| Think 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!
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I warn you that in a little while others will find
their past in you and your times.
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The race is never separated—nor man nor woman
escapes,
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All is inextricable—things, spirits, nature, nations,
you too—from precedents you come.
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Recall the ever-welcome defiers! (The mothers
precede them;)
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Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, law-
givers, of the earth,
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Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons —
brother of slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane
and diseased persons.
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| Think 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!
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| Think of spiritual results! |
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Sure as the earth swims through the heavens,
does every one of its objects pass into
spiritual results!
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| Think 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?
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