You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about
it,
You may read the President’s message and read
nothing about it there,
Nothing in the reports from the State department or
Treasury
department, or in the daily
papers or weekly papers,
Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current,
or any accounts
of stock.
3
The sun and stars that float in the open air,
The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the
drift of them is
something grand,
I do not know what it is except that it is grand,
and that it is happiness, And that the enclosing purport
of us here is not a speculation or
bon-mot or reconnoissance,
And that it is not something which by luck may turn
out well for us,
and without luck must be a
failure for us,
And not something which may yet be retracted in a
certain contingency.
The light and shade, the curious sense of body and
identity, the
greed that with perfect complaisance
devours all things,
The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable
joys and sorrows,
The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees,
and the wonders
that fill each minute of time
forever,
What have you reckon’d them for, camerado?
Have you reckon’d them for your trade or farm-work?
or for the
profits of your store?
Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman’s
leisure,
or a lady’s leisure?
Have you reckon’d that the landscape took substance
and form that it
might be painted in a picture?
Or men and women that they might be written of, and
songs sung?
Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and
harmonious combinations
and the fluids of the air,
as subjects for the savans?
Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts?
Or the stars to be put in constellations and named
fancy names?
Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables,
or
agriculture itself?
Old institutions, these arts, libraries, legends,
collections, and
the practice handed along
in manufactures, will we rate them so high?
Will we rate our cash and business high? I have
no objection,
I rate them as high as the highest—then
a child born of a woman and
man I rate beyond all rate.
We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand,
I do not say they are not grand and good, for they
are,
I am this day just as much in love with them as you,
Then I am in love with You, and with all my fellows
upon the earth.
We consider bibles and religions divine—I
do not say they are not divine,
I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow
out of you still,
It is not they who give the life, it is you who give
the life,
Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees
from the earth,
than they are shed out of
you.


