Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/224

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Leaves of Grass.

4. All this time, and at all times, wait the words of poems;

The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and fathers,
The words of poems are the tuft and final applause of science.

5. Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, rudeness of body, withdrawnness, gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness — such are some of the words of poems.

6. The sailor and traveller underlie the maker of poems,

The builder, geometer, mathematician, astronomer, melodist, chemist, anatomist, spiritualist, language-searcher, geologist, phrenologist, artist—all these underlie the maker of poems.

7. The words of poems give you more than poems,

They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, romances, and everything else,
They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
They do not seek beauty—they are sought,
Forever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.

8. They prepare for death—yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,

They bring none to his or her terminus, or to be content and full;