No More Learning

Slow-moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth,
Northerner goes carried, and Southerner goes carried, and they on the
Atlantic side, and they on the Pacific, and they between, and all
through the Mississippi country, and all over the earth.

The great masters and kosmos are well as they go--the heroes and good-doers
are well,
The known leaders and inventors, and the rich owners and pious and
distinguished, may be well,
But there is more account than that--there is strict account of all.

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing,
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
The common people of Europe are not nothing--the American aborigines are
not nothing,
The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing--the murderer or
mean person is not nothing,
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go,
The lowest prostitute is not nothing--the mocker of religion is not nothing
as he goes.


9.

I shall go with the rest--we have satisfaction,
I have dreamed that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of us
changed,
I have dreamed that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and
past law,
And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and past
law,
For I have dreamed that the law they are under now is enough.

And I have dreamed that the satisfaction is not so much changed, and that
there is no life without satisfaction;
What is the earth? what are Body and Soul without satisfaction?

I shall go with the rest,
We cannot be stopped at a given point--that is no satisfaction,
To show us a good thing, or a few good things, for a space of time--that is
no satisfaction,
We must have the indestructible breed of the best, regardless of time.
If otherwise, all these things came but to ashes of dung,
If maggots and rats ended us, then alarum! for we are betrayed!
Then indeed suspicion of death.

Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, I should die now:
Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?


10.

Pleasantly and well-suited I walk:
Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good;
The whole universe indicates that it is good,
The past and the present indicate that it is good.
How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect is my Soul!
How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!
What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect,
The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable fluids
are perfect;
Slowly and surely they have passed on to this, and slowly and surely they
yet pass on.

My Soul! if I realise you, I have satisfaction;
Animals and vegetables! if I realise you, I have satisfaction;
Laws of the earth and air! if I realise you, I have satisfaction.

I cannot define my satisfaction, yet it is so;
I cannot define my life, yet it is so.


11.

It comes to me now!
I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the
animals!

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!