13
My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination
around the whole earth, I have look’d for equals
and lovers and found them ready for me in
all lands,
I think some divine rapport has equalized me with
them.
You vapors, I think I have risen with you, moved away
to distant
continents, and fallen down
there, for reasons,
I think I have blown with you you winds;
You waters I have finger’d every shore with
you,
I have run through what any river or strait of the
globe has run through,
I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas and
on the high
embedded rocks, to cry thence:
What cities the light or warmth penetrates I penetrate
those cities myself,
All islands to which birds wing their way I wing my
way myself.
Toward you all, in America’s name,
I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the signal,
To remain after me in sight forever,
For all the haunts and homes of men.
[Book VII]
} Song of the Open Road
1
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need
nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous
criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me
wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them
in return.)
2
You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you
are not all
that is here,
I believe that much unseen is also here.
Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference
nor denial,
The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d,
the
illiterate person, are not
denied;
The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s
tramp, the
drunkard’s stagger,
the laughing party of mechanics,
The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage,
the fop, the eloping couple,
The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture
into the
town, the return back from
the town,
They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can
be interdicted,
None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me.
3
You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and
give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate
equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you
are so dear to me.


