And go on the square for my own sake and for others'
sakes,
And make short account of neuters and geldings, and
favor men and women fully equipped,
And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives,
and them that plot and conspire.
136.Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a
kosmos,
Disorderly, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking, breeding,
No sentimentalist—no stander above men and
women, or apart from them,
No more modest than immodest.
137.Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
138.Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me,
And whatever I do or say, I also return.
139.Through me the afflatus surging and surging—
through me the current and index.
140.I speak the pass-word primeval—I give the sign of
democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have
their counterpart of on the same terms.
141.Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of the interminable generations of slaves,
Voices of prostitutes, and of deformed persons,
Voices of the diseased and despairing, and of thieves
and dwarfs,
Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/62
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Leaves of Grass.