Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem; I whisper with my lips close to your ear, I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb;
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing
but you.

I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you; None have understood you, but I understand you; None have done justice to you—­you have not done justice to yourself; None but have found you imperfect—­I only find no imperfection in you.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!  You have not known what you are—­you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life; What you have done returns already in mockeries.

But the mockeries are not you; Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk; I pursue you where none else has pursued you; Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me; The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do not balk me, The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you; There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you; No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you; No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!  These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you; These immense meadows—­these interminable rivers—­you are immense and interminable as they; You are he or she who is master or mistress over them, Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles—­you find an unfailing sufficiency; Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself; Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted; Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.

Verily a fine and moving poem, in any case, but there are two ways of taking it, both useful.

One is the monistic way, the mystical way of pure cosmic emotion.  The glories and grandeurs, they are yours absolutely, even in the midst of your defacements.  Whatever may happen to you, whatever you may appear to be, inwardly you are safe.  Look back, lie back, on your true principle of being!  This is the famous way of quietism, of indifferentism.  Its enemies compare it to a spiritual opium.  Yet pragmatism must respect this way, for it has massive historic vindication.