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Leaves of Grass (1856)
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6—Poem of a Few Greatnesses.
| GREAT are the myths, I too delight in them, |
Great are Adam and Eve, I too look back and
accept them,
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Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets,
women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors,
priests.
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Great is liberty! Great is equality! I am their
follower,
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Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where
you sail, I sail!
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Yours is the muscle of life or death, yours is the
perfect science, in you I have absolute faith.
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| Great is today, and beautiful, |
It is good to live in this age, there never was any
better.
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Great are the plunges, throes, triumphs, falls of
democracy,
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| Great the reformers, with their lapses and screams, |
Great the daring and venture of sailors on new
explorations.
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| Great are yourself and myself, |
We are just as good and bad as the oldest and
youngest or any,
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| What the best and worst did, we could do, |
| What they felt, do not we feel it in ourselves? |
| What they wished, do we not wish the same? |
Great is youth, equally great is old age—great are
the day and night,
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Great is wealth, great is poverty, great is expres-
sion, great is silence,
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Youth, large, lusty, loving—youth, full of grace,
force, fascination,
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Do you know that old age may come after you,
with equal grace, force, fascination?
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Day, full-blown and splendid—day of the im-
mense sun, action, ambition, laughter,
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The night follows close, with millions of suns,
and sleep, and restoring darkness.
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Wealth with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospi-
tality,
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But then the soul's wealth, which is candor,
knowledge, pride, enfolding love;
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(Who goes for men and women showing poverty
richer than wealth?)
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Expression of speech! in what is written or said,
forget not that silence is also expressive,
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That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt
as cold as the coldest, may be without words,
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That the true adoration is likewise without words,
and without kneeling.
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Great is the greatest nation! the nation of clus-
ters of equal nations!
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Great is the earth, and the way it became what it
is,
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Do you imagine it is stopped at this? the increase
abandoned?
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Understand then that it goes as far onward from
this, as this is from the times when it lay in
covering waters and gases.
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| Great is the quality of truth in man, |
The quality of truth in man supports itself
through all changes,
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It is inevitably in the man—he and it are in love,
and never leave each other.
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The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eye-
sight,
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If there be any soul, there is truth—if there be
man or woman, there is truth—if there be
physical or moral, there is truth,
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If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth
—if there be things at all upon the earth,
there is truth.
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O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am
determined to press the whole way toward
you,
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Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in
the sea after you.
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Great is language—it is the mightiest of the
sciences,
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It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the
earth, and of men and women, and of all
qualities and processes,
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It is greater than wealth—it is greater than
buildings, ships, religions, paintings, music.
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Great is the English speech—what speech is so
great as the English?
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Great is the English brood—what brood has so
vast a destiny as the English?
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It is the mother of the brood that must rule the
earth with the new rule,
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The new rule shall rule as the soul
rules, and as
the love, justice, equality in the soul, rule.
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Great in the law—great are the old few land-
marks of the law,
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They are the same in all times, and shall not be
disturbed.
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Great are marriage, commerce, newspapers,
books, free-trade, rail-roads, steamers, interna-
tional mails, telegraphs, exchanges.
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Justice is not settled by legislators and laws—it
is in the soul,
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It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than
love, pride, the attraction of gravity, can,
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It is immutable—it does not depend on major-
ities—majorities or what not come at last
before the same passionless and exact tri-
bunal.
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For justice are the grand natural lawyers and per-
fect judges, it is in their souls,
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It is well assorted, they have not studied for noth-
ing, the great includes the less,
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They rule on the highest grounds, they oversee
all eras, states, administrations.
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The perfect judge fears nothing, he could go front
to front before God,
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Before the perfect judge all shall stand back —
life and death shall stand back—heaven and
hell shall stand back.
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I do not know what it is any more than I know
what health is, but I know it is great.
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Great is wickedness—I find I often admire it just
as much as I admire goodness,
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Do you call that a paradox? It certainly is a par-
adox.
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The eternal equilibrium of things is great, and the
eternal overthrow of things is great,
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| And there is another paradox. |
Great is life, real and mystical, wherever and
whoever,
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Great is death—sure as life holds all parts to-
gether, death holds all parts together,
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| Death has just as much purport as life has, |
Do you enjoy what life confers? you shall enjoy
what death confers,
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I do not understand the realities of death, but I
know they are great,
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I do not understand the least reality of life —
how then can I understand the realities of
death?
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