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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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WHO LEARNS MY LESSON COMPLETE?
1 WHO learns my lesson complete? |
Boss, journeyman, apprentice—churchman and atheist, |
The stupid and the wise thinker—parents and offspring
—merchant, clerk, porter and customer,
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Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—draw nigh and
commence;
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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, |
I love them quits and quits, I do not halt, and make
salaams.
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3 I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things,
and the reasons of things;
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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.
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5 It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe,
moving so exactly in its orbit for ever and ever,
without one jolt, or the untruth of a single
second;
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I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten
thousand years, nor ten billions of years,
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Nor plann'd and built one thing after another, as an
architect plans and builds a house.
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View Page 99
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6 I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or
woman,
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Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man
or woman,
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Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or
any one else.
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7 Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every
one is immortal;
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I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally won-
derful, and how I was conceived in my mother's
womb is equally wonderful;
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And pass'd from a babe, in the creeping trance of a
couple of summers and winters, to articulate and
walk—All this is equally wonderful.
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8 And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we
affect each other without ever seeing each other,
and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit
as wonderful.
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9 And that I can think such thoughts as these, is just
as wonderful;
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And that I can remind you, and you think them, and
know them to be true, is just as wonderful.
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10 And that the moon spins round the earth, and on
with the earth, is equally wonderful,
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And that they balance themselves with the sun and
stars, is equally wonderful.
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