and the lifted sick, and the
          sharp-lipp’d unshaved men;
    All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,
    I am the man, I suffered, I was there. 
    The disdain and calmness of martyrs,
    The mother of old, condemned for a witch, burned with dry wood, her
          children gazing on,
    The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence blowing,
          covered with sweat. 
    I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,
    Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,
    I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn’d with the
         ooze of my skin,
    I fall on the weeds and stones,
    The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,
    Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with
         whip-stocks.

Old age superbly rising!  O welcome, ineffable grace of dying days!

See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that,
Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that. 
My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain,
The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms. 
The great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine will be there.

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own
funeral drest in his shroud.

    And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds
          the learning of all times,
    And there is no trade or employment but the young man following
          it may become a hero,
    And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d
          universe. 
    And I say to any man or woman, “Let your soul stand cool and composed
          before a million universes.”

    I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each
          moment then,
    In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in
          the glass,
    I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is
          sign’d by God’s name,
    And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,
    Others will punctually come forever and ever.

    Listener up there!  What have you to confide in me? 
    Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening. 
    (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute
          longer.)
    Who has done his day’s work?  Who will soonest be through with
          his supper? 
    Who wishes to walk with me?

    I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
    I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

INDEX

 A barking sound the shepherd hears, 120

 Abide with me! fast falls the eventide, 223

 Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase), 89