Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-
    figure of all,
From the head of the centre- figure spreading a nimbus of gold-
    color'd light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its
     nimbus of gold-color'd light,
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it
     streams, effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon
     yourself all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in
     mockeries, what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the
     accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or
     from yourself, they do not conceal you from me,
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if
     these balk others they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed,
     premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in
     you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is
     in you,
No plunk, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits
     for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like
     carefully to you,
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than
     I sing the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,
These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are
     immense and interminable as they,
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of
     apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or
     mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements,
     pain, passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing
     sufficiency,
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,
     whatever you are promulges itself,
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided,
     nothing is scanted,
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you
     are picks its way.

1856 1881

FRANCE

A GREAT year and place,
A harsh discordant natal scream out-sounding, to touch the
     mother's heart closer than any yet.

I walk'd the shores of my Eastern sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant where she woke mournfully wailing, amid
     the roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crush of falling buildings,
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running, nor from
     the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away
     in the tumbrils,
Was not so desperate at the battues of death — was not
     so shock'd at the repeated fusillades of the guns.

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued
     retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

O liberty! O mate for me!
Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve,
     to fetch them out in case of need,
Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy'd,
Here too could rise at last murdering and ecstatic,
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.