Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

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¹ THINK 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.

² 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.

³ Think of the past;

I warn you that in a little while, others will find their
past in you and your times.

⁴ The race is never separated—nor man nor woman
escapes;

All is inextricable—things, spirits, nature, nations,
you too—from precedents you come.

⁵ Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers pre-
cede them;)

Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers,
of the earth;

Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother of
slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseas'd
persons.

⁶ 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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⁷ Think of spiritual results,

Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does
every one of its objects pass into spiritual
results.

⁸ Think of manhood, and you to be a man;

Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood,
nothing?

⁹ 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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