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"Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of
dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your
feet and hands, Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,
troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops,
work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating,
drinking, suffering, dying.
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you
be my poem, I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better
than you.
O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted
nothing but you.
I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to
yourself
...
O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon
yourself all your life, Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries, (Your thrift, knowledge, prayers,
if they do not return in
mockeries, what is their return?)
...
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good
is in you, No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits
for you.
...
I sing the songs of the glory of you.
…
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what
you are picks its way."
-Walt Whitman, To You
(full version here)
image via vi.sualize.us
