I will make the true poem of riches,
To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres
and goes forward
and is not dropt by death;
I will effuse egotism and show it underlying all,
and I will be the
bard of personality,
And I will show of male and female that either is
but the equal of
the other,
And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in
me, for I am determin’d
to tell you with courageous
clear voice to prove you illustrious,
And I will show that there is no imperfection in the
present, and
can be none in the future,
And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it
may be turn’d to
beautiful results,
And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful
than death,
And I will thread a thread through my poems that time
and events are
compact,
And that all the things of the universe are perfect
miracles, each
as profound as any.
I will not make poems with reference to parts,
But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference
to ensemble,
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with
reference to
all days,
And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a
poem but has
reference to the soul,
Because having look’d at the objects of the
universe, I find there
is no one nor any particle
of one but has reference to the soul.
13
Was somebody asking to see the soul?
See, your own shape and countenance, persons, substances,
beasts,
the trees, the running rivers,
the rocks and sands.
All hold spiritual joys and afterwards loosen them;
How can the real body ever die and be buried?
Of your real body and any man’s or woman’s
real body,
Item for item it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners
and
pass to fitting spheres,
Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of
birth to the
moment of death.
Not the types set up by the printer return their impression,
the
meaning, the main concern,
Any more than a man’s substance and life or
a woman’s substance and
life return in the body and
the soul,
Indifferently before death and after death.
Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the
main concern and
includes and is the soul;
Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your
body, or any part
of it!
14 Whoever you are, to you endless announcements!
Daughter of the lands did you wait for your poet?
Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative
hand?
Toward the male of the States, and toward the female
of the States,
Exulting words, words to Democracy’s lands.