Poem incarnating the mind

  [ begin leaf 2 recto ]loc_jc.01657.jpg Poem incarnating the mind of an old man, whose life has been magnificently developed—the wildest and most exuberant joy—the utterance of hope and floods of anticipation—faith in whatever happens—but all enfolded in Joy Joy Joy, which underlies and overtops the whole effusion Why are you cautious and of the ? ^and of your eyes?—I guess it is because they incarnate to me the   [ begin leaf 2 verso ]loc_jc.01658.jpg ^^{Crossing the Fulton ferry to-day,} I met an old acquaintance, to-day whom I had missed from the city these three years.—He told me his experience that time.—He had been reporting and lobbying at Albany and Washington ^^{employed as reporter and lobbyer.—}.—He corresponded with newspapers and received pay.—He When dull legislators made dull speeches, he licked them into sleekness, and so had synopses of them put in print, and received pay.—He took hold of some scheme or claim before ^upon the legislature, and lobbied for it;—he helped men who were office seeking; he put *   [ begin leaf 3 recto ]loc_jc.01659.jpg with merchants and tradesmen ^{and factors} the point of honor is to pay notes punctually,—to pay off the men every Saturday night,—to have ^^{receive permit} no demands which they cannot satisfy at an appointed day.— ^{We are Concerned in the make of th a grand steam ship} We cannot sleep nights for thinking on the pennant halyards, of the steamer ^^{and the little gaskets,} but we feel no speck of anxiety about the style and strength of the engines.—

  [ begin leaf 3 verso ]loc_jc.01660.jpg His blood ^{My gore} presently oozes from ^^{trickles down} ^^{from a score of} 
  and [illegible] ^and thinned with the  
 plentiful sweat ^{salt ooze of my skin}, And ^^{See how it} ^^as trickles down the black skin I He slowly falls on the ^^reddened grass and stones, And the hunters haul up close  
 with their unwilling horses, And ^Till the taunt and curse ^oath sink ^swim 
  ^^{away from my} dim and dizzy ^^{away from my} in his ears tr * What Lucifer felt, ^^{cursed when} tumbling from 
  Heaven What the rebel, when he ^felt gaily 
  adjusting his neck to the 
  rope noose, * What the red ^^brown savage, lashed to 
  the stump, but ^^{spirting launching} yelling still 
  his ^{yells and} laughter to at every foe What rage of hell of spirted urged

  [ begin leaf 4 recto ]loc_jc.01661.jpg * greenhorns through their noviciate; he manufactured public opinion at a distance, and so forth, and so forth.—For all these he duly received pay.— from the lips and fingers ^hands  
  of the vict captors ^{victors.— How fared} The young captain that lay ^^[illegible] dying ^pale ^^{pale and ebbing} 
  ^^flat on his ^^own bloody deck The pangs of defeat more ^sharper than 
  death to his hearts breast ^{the green edged wounds of of his side}, What choked the throat of 
  the general when he sur 
 rendered with all his army, (over leaf ☞   [ begin leaf 4 verso ]loc_jc.01662.jpg But the spirits, effusing mind, character, No man and no woman can with bruise ^gash or starve or overburden or pollute or imbibe bad ^rotten stuff in the ^{that superior nature of} his or her's, any more than one can poison or starve his body.— What minutes of damnation What heightless dread, ^^falls in the 
  click of a moment   [ begin leaf 5 recto ]loc_jc.01663.jpg story of Julia Scudder whose husband left her Is not the faculty of sight better than the ? of the eye?—Is not the human voice more than the rings of the windpipe? No man and no woman will means to stab deform or sicken the body.—Of ^For that wonderful and beautiful vessel, we are pro make   [ begin leaf 5 verso ]loc_jc.01664.jpg Lotos—the water lily of the Nile honey-lotus—honey-clover Amelioration is the blood that runs through the body of the universe.—I grow I do not lag—I do not hasten—^^{—it appears to say—}I bide my time ^{day hours} over billions ^^{of billions} of years—I exist in the formless void that through ^{asks for takes} uncounted ages forms ^{time and coheres to} a nebula ^?, and in further ages ^time coheresing to an orb, and marches, like ^{gladly round,} a ^^beautiful tangible creature, in itsher place in the newer processions of God, whither ^where the troops are hastening for ^^{new accessions comers have been} falling in the ranks for   [ begin leaf 6 recto ]loc_jc.01665.jpg ever, and now will be so always—I could be balked no how, not if all the worlds and living beings in were ^^{this hour ^minute reduced} turned back into the fog ^^{impalpable film} of chaos—I should surely bring up again where we now stand, and go on as much further and still ^thence on and on—I think a few n my right hand is time, and my left hand is space—both are ample—a few quintillions of cycles, a few sextillions of cubic leagues, are not of ^^special importance to me—I what I attain shall attain to I do not know ^{can never tell}, for there is something that   [ begin leaf 6 verso ]loc_jc.01666.jpg underlies and overtops me, of whom I am an effusion ^{a part an attribute} and instrument.— such is the And will you ^^{Tongue of a million voices,} tell us no more,. of tongue of a million voices?—Come, we listen O mouth of mystery we listen, we listen with dreaming stretched pangs ^itchings of desire, for ^{to hear} your tale of the soul.— We Tthrob and wait, and lay your ^our ears to the wall as y as we may, we throb   [ begin leaf 7 recto ]loc_jc.01667.jpg and wait ^^{for the god} in vain.—I am vast—he seems to console us with, ^^{a whispering undertone in lack} instead of an answer—and my works are what ^{is wherever} the universe is—but we are only the morning wakers to the soul of man.—the Soul of man! the Soul of man!—To that, we do the office of the servants who wakes histheir master at the dawn.   [ begin leaf 7 verso ]loc_jc.01668.jpg   [ begin leaf 8 recto ]loc_jc.01669.jpg Of all the plenty in nature there is, no plenty is comparable to the plenty of time and space.—Of these there is ample store,—there is no limit   [ begin leaf 8 verso ]loc_jc.01670.jpg All truths lie hidde waiting in all things.—They neither urge the opening of themselves nor resist it.— (The heart of man alone is the one unbalanced and restless thing in the world) And the For their birth you need not the obstetric orforceps of the surgeon. Approach them with love They ^^perhaps unfold to you and emit them^^selves, more fragrant than roses from their ^living buds, if ^whenever you fetch in yourself thate spring sunshine and ^^{moistened with} summer rain.—But it must be in yourself.—It shall come   [ begin leaf 9 recto ]loc_jc.01671.jpg from your soul.—It shall be love.— We hear of miracles.—But what is there that is not a miracle? What Of wWhat can ^may you conceive of or propound ^name to me in the future, that were a greater miracle than ^{stranger or subtler shall be beyond} me any ^^{all or} ^^{the least} thing around us?—I am looking in your eyes;—tell me O then, if you can, what is ^{there in the immortality of the soul} more incomprehensible than this curious ^spiritual and beautiful miracle of sight?—^^{By the equally subtle one of} Volition, is an I open to almond-sized ^{two pairs of} lids, only as big as a peach-pits, when lo! the unnamable variety and whelming splendor *   [ begin leaf 9 verso ]loc_jc.01672.jpg We know that sympathy or love is the law of ^over all laws, because in nothing else but love does ^is the soul conscious of pure happiness, which is ^{appears to be} the ultimate resting place of and point of all things.— * of the whole world to come to me.—with silence and with swiftness.—In an instant I ma Then make I fluid and draw to myself, however dense ^^{keeping each to its distinct isolation, and no hubbub or jam or confusion, or jam,} the whole of physical nature, though rocks are dense and hills are ponderous, and the stars are far ^away off sextillions of miles.—All the years of all the beings that have ever life lived on the earth, *   [ begin leaf 10 recto ]loc_jc.01673.jpg If the light of a half day dawn were arrested, and held so for a thousand years How And wrote chalked on a great  
 board, Be of good cheer, we  
 will not desert you,  
 and held it up as they  
 to against the and did it; The thin swift passing clouds like lace, blown overhead during a storm are called the flying scud If Let us suppose for fo that all the most rational people of the world had gone no further than children of twelve years old—or, as this seems forced, suppose the utmost advance yet made was the advance of the Camanches and kindred peoples of

  [ begin leaf 10 verso ]loc_jc.01674.jpg The Poet All the greatness and beau ^{large hearts of heroes,} All the courage of olden time and ^new What How spied the the captain and sailors ^the [illegible] great wreck with its helpless drifting hundreds, did when they ^How they waited, their craft shooting madly like an arrow up and down in the storm. And in that deadly sea waited five ^{^How they gripped close with Death ^there on the sea, and gave him not one inch, but held on}  
 days and nights near the helpless ^^{fogged great} wreck, * over leaf How the ^^lank white faced women looked  
 as they ^when ferried them safely at last  
 as from ^^{the sides} their waiting ^prepared graves How the children, and the ^^lifted sick, and  
 the sharp-lipped, unshaved men; All this he ^I drinks ^swallows in his ^my  
 soul, and it becomes his ^mine,  
 and he ^I likes it well, He is ^{I am} the man; [illegible] he ^I suffered, he ^I was  
 there: And more: He is the brave boy that saved them too: All the beautiful disdain and  
 calmness of martyrs   [ begin leaf 11 recto ]loc_jc.01675.jpg The old woman that was  
 chained and burnt with dry  
 wood, and her children looking on, The great queens that walked  
 serenely to the block, The ^^hunted slave that ^who stood could 
  run no longer, ^^{flags in the race at last} and  
 then stood by ^{leans leaned up by} the fence,  
 blowing panting and covered with sweat, And his eye that shoot burns defiance  
 and desperation hatred And the buck shot, were And the how the twinges that  
 sting like needles his  
 breast and neck The murderous buck-shot  
 planted like terrible and the bullets. This ^All [illegible]this he ^I not only ^{feels and} sees ^{feels am} but He is ^{I am} the hunted slave, Damnation and despair are close upon him ^me He I clutches the rail of  
 the fence. * (back

  [ begin leaf 11 verso ]loc_jc.01676.jpg

All around me I hear how great is Adam or Eve—how illustrious ^significant are the illustrious Greeks, or later Italians and Germans, and modern En- celebrities of England and France.—Yes Christ was great ^large and so was Homer ^{was great;} and so Columbus and Washington and Fulton. But ^greatness is the other word for developement, and in my soul to me I know that I am great ^{large and strong} as any of them, probably greater.— ^larger.—

Because all that they did I feel that I too could do, and more ^^{and that multiplied;} ; and ^^{and with after} none of them or their achievements   [ begin leaf 12 recto ]loc_jc.01677.jpg isdoes my stomach ^^say fully ^^{enough and} satisfied fully satisfies me.—Except Christ; he alone is the ^{brings the} perfumed bread for ^{of to} my soul, ^^{ever vivifying and clean, to me,—} ever fresh and plenty, ever welcome and sufficient ^{to spare.—}

Not even God, that dread ? is so great to me as mMyself is great to me.—Who knows but I too shall in time be a God as pure and prodigious as any of them.— ^^Now I stand here, an existence a personality in the Universe, ^^isolated, perfect and sound, is isolated; all ^to all things and all other beings ^^{as an audience at the play-house} perpetually and perpetually calling me out from my recesses behind the ^^my curtain.—

  [ begin leaf 12 verso ]loc_jc.01678.jpg shall we sky-lark with God The poet seems to say to  
 the rest of the world Come, God and I are now here What will you have of us.

* with all the science and genius, for implements, were were nobly occupied in ^the single employment of investigating this one single abstract one minute ^minute of my life

Blacksmithing

when they have a great heat in the fire.— Five or six blacksmiths swing their sledges in overhand overhand overhand—

It would be as though some publisher should reject the best and poems ever written in the world because he who brings them to be printed has a worn shabby umbrella, or mud on the shank of his boot.   [ begin leaf 13 verso ]loc_jc.01680.jpg The creek on Long Island when the boating party were returning and capsized, and the young man saved his sweetheart and lost his sister I One grand faculty [illegible] we want,—and that is the power to pierce all ^fine clothing and ^^{thick coated} shams, and settle for sure what the reality of the thing clothed and disguised is, and what it weighs stark naked; the power of eluding and slipping like an eel from ^through all blandishments and graspings * back   [ begin leaf 14 recto ]loc_jc.01681.jpg of convention.; the power