Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (1860)

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11.

¹ WHO learns my lesson complete?

Boss, journeyman, apprentice—churchman and athe-
ist,

The stupid and the wise thinker—parents and off-
spring—merchant, clerk, porter, and customer,

Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—Draw nigh and
commence;

It is no lesson — it lets down the bars to a good
lesson,

And that to another, and every one to another still.

² The great laws take and effuse without argument,

I am of the same style, for I am their friend,

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I love them quits and quits—I do not halt and make
salaams.

³ I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things,
and the reasons of things,

They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.

⁴ I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot
say it to myself—it is very wonderful.

⁵ It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe,
         moving so exactly in its orbit forever and ever,
         without one jolt, or the untruth of a single
         second,

I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten
thousand years, nor ten billions of years,

Nor planned and built one thing after another, as an
architect plans and builds a house.

⁶ I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or
woman,

Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a
man or woman,

Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or
any one else.

⁷ Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every
one is immortal,

I know it is wonderful—but my eye-sight is equally
wonderful, and how I was conceived in my moth-
er's womb is equally wonderful;

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And how I was not palpable once, but am now—and
was born on the last day of Fifth Month, in the
Year 43 of America,

And passed from a babe, in the creeping trance of
three summers and three winters, to articulate
and walk—All this is equally wonderful.

⁸ And that I grew six feet high, and that I have become
         a man thirty-six years old in the Year 79 of
         America—and that I am here anyhow—are all
         equally wonderful.

⁹ And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we af-
         fect each other without ever seeing each other,
         and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit
         as wonderful.

¹⁰ And that I can think such thoughts as these, is just as
wonderful,

And that I can remind you, and you think them and
know them to be true, is just as wonderful.

¹¹ And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with
the earth, is equally wonderful,

And that they balance themselves with the sun and
stars, is equally wonderful.

¹² Come! I should like to hear you tell me what there
is in yourself that is not just as wonderful,

And I should like to hear the name of anything be-
tween First Day morning and Seventh Day night
that is not just as wonderful.

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