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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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SHUT NOT YOUR DOORS, &c.
SHUT not your doors to me, proud libraries, |
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd
shelves, yet needed most, I bring,
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Forth from the army, the war emerging—a book I
have made,
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The words of my book nothing—the drift of it every-
thing;
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View Page 118
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A book separate, not link'd with the rest, nor felt by
the intellect,
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But you, ye untold latencies, will thrill to every page; |
Through Space and Time, fused in a chant, and the
flowing, eternal Identity,
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To Nature, encompassing these, encompassing God—
to the joyous, electric All,
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To the sense of Death—and accepting, exulting in
Death, in its turn, the same as life,
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The entrance of Man I sing. |
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