Leaves of Grass (Wisehouse Classics - Authentic Reproduction of the 1855 First Edition) by Whitman Walt

Author:Whitman, Walt [Whitman, Walt]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9789176371466
Publisher: Wisehouse
Published: 2016-02-05T16:00:00+00:00

A Song for Occupations

COME closer to me,

Push close my lovers and take the best I possess,

Yield closer and closer and give me the best you possess.

This is unfinished business with me . . . . how is it with you?

I was chilled with the cold types and cylinder and wet paper between us.

I pass so poorly with paper and types . . . . I must pass with the contact of bodies and souls.

I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking the touch of me . . . . I know that it is good for you to do so.

Were all educations practical and ornamental well displayed out of me, what would it amount to?

Were I as the head teacher or charitable proprietor or wise statesman, what would it amount to?

Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?

The learned and virtuous and benevolent, and the usual terms;

A man like me, and never the usual terms.

Neither a servant nor a master am I,

I take no sooner a large price than a small price . . . . I will have my own whoever enjoys me,

I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me.

If you are a workman or workwoman I stand as nigh as the nighest that works in the same shop,

If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend, I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend,

If your lover or husband or wife is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome;

If you have become degraded or ill, then I will become so for your sake;

If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I cannot remember my foolish and outlawed deeds?

If you carouse at the table I say I will carouse at the opposite side of the table;

If you meet some stranger in the street and love him or her, do I not often meet strangers in the street and love them?

If you see a good deal remarkable in me I see just as much remarkable in you.

Why what have you thought of yourself?

Is it you then that thought yourself less?

Is it you that thought the President greater than you? or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?

Because you are greasy or pimpled—or that you was once drunk, or a thief, or diseased, or rheumatic, or a prostitute—or are so now—or from frivolity or impotence—or that you are no scholar, and never saw your name in print . . . . do you give in that you are any less immortal?

Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable and untouching;

It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or no;

I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns . . . . and see and hear you, and what you give and take;

What is there you cannot give and take?

I see not merely that you are polite or whitefaced .

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