No More Learning

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.

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 formed out of all;
The fanged 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.

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;
And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in me--for I am determined
to tell you with courageous clear voice, to prove you illustrious.

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?


8.

I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races;
I advance from the people _en masse_ in their own spirit;
Here is what sings unrestricted faith.
Omnes! Omnes! let others ignore what they may;
I make the poem of evil also--I commemorate that part also;
I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is--And I say there is
in fact no evil,
Or if there is, I say it is just as important to you, to the land, or to
me, as anything else.

I too, following many, and followed by many, inaugurate a Religion--I too
go to the wars;
It may be I am destined to utter the loudest cries thereof, the winner's
pealing shouts;
Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above everything.

Each is not for its own sake;
I say the whole earth, and all the stars in the sky, are for religion's
sake.
I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough;
None has ever yet adored or worshipped half enough;
None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the
future is.

I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their
religion;
Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur;
Nor character, nor life worthy the name, without religion;
Nor land, nor man or woman, without religion.


9.

What are you doing, young man?
Are you so earnest--so given up to literature, science, art, amours?
These ostensible realities, politics, points?
Your ambition or business, whatever it may be?

It is well--Against such I say not a word--I am their poet also;
But behold! such swiftly subside--burnt up for religion's sake;
For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential life of
the earth,
Any more than such are to religion.


10.

What do you seek, so pensive and silent?
What do you need, Camerado?
Dear son! do you think it is love?

Listen, dear son--listen, America, daughter or son!
It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess--and yet it
satisfies--it is great;
But there is something else very great--it makes the whole coincide;
It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands, sweeps and
provides for all.