7
18
The Soul:
Forever and forever—longer than soil is brown and solid—longer than water ebbs and flows.
19
I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most spiritual poems;
And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,
For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my Soul, and of immortality.
20
I will make a song for These States, that no one State may under any circumstances be subjected to another State;
And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by night between all The States, and between any two of them;
And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full of weapons with menacing points,
And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces:
—And a song make I, of the One form'd out of all;
The fang'd and glittering One whose head is over all;
Resolute, warlike One, including and over all;
(However high the head of any else, that head is over all.)
21
I will acknowledge contemporary lands;
I will trail the whole geography of the globe, and salute courteously every city large and small;
And employments! I will put in my poems, that with you is heroism, upon land and sea;
And I will report all heroism from an American point of view.
22
I will sing the song of companionship;
I will show what alone must finally compact These;
I believe These are to found their own ideal of manly love, indicating it in me;
I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were threatening to consume me;
I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires;
I will give them complete abandonment;
I will write the evangel-poem of comrades, and of love;
(For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
