Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/181

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Chants Democratic.
173

7. Think of loving and being loved;
I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse
yourself with such things that everybody that sees
you shall look longingly upon you.

8. Think of the past;
I warn you that in a little while, others will find their
past in you and your times.

9. The race is never separated—nor man nor woman
escapes,
All is inextricable—things, spirits, nature, nations,
you too—from precedents you come.

10. Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precede
them;)
Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, lawgivers,
of the earth,
Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother
of slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseased
persons.

11. Think of the time when you was not yet born,
Think of times you stood at the side of the dying,
Think of the time when your own body will be dying.

12. Think of spiritual results,
Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does
every one of its objects pass into spiritual results.

13. Think of manhood, and you to be a man;
Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood,
nothing?

15*