Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/183

With countless years drawing themselves onward, and
arrived at these years,
You and Me arrived—America arrived, and making
this year,
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to
come.

2. O but it is not the years—it is I—it is You,
We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents,
We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the
knight—we easily include them, and more,
We stand amid time, beginningless and endless—we
stand amid evil and good,
All swings around us—there is as much darkness as
light,
The very sun swings itself and its system of planets
around us,
Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.

3. As for me,
I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all;
I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true—
I reject no part.

4. Have I forgotten any part?
Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you
recognition.

5. I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews,
I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god,
I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are
true, without exception,
I assert that all past days were what they should have
been,