Seen at hand or seen at a distance,
Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day,
Duly approach and pass with their companions or a
     companion,
Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the
     countenances of those who are with them,
From the countenances of children or women or the manly
     countenance,
From the open countenances of animals or from inanimate
     things,
From the landscape or waters or from the exquisite apparition
     of the sky,
From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning
     them,
Every day in public appearing without fail, but never twice
     with the same companions.

Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred
     and sixty-five resistlessly round the sun;
Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred
     and sixty-five offsets of the first, sure and necessary as they.

Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading,
Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, forever withstanding, passing,
     carrying,

The soul's realization and determination still inheriting,
The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing,
No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking,
Swift, glad, content, unbereav'd, nothing losing,
Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account,
The divine ship sails the divine sea.

Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for
     you,
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is
     solid and liquid,
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the
     sky,
For none more than you are the present and the past,
For none more than you is immortality.

Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word
     of the past and present, and the true word of immortality;
No one can acquire for another — not one,
Not one can grow for another — not one.

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,
The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him —
    it cannot fail,
The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and
     actress not to the audience,
And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his
     own, or the indication of his own.

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who
     shall be complete,
The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who
     remains jagged and broken.

I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate
     those of the earth,
There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate
     the theory of the earth,
No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account,
     unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth,
Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude
     of the earth.

I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that
     which responds love,
It is that which contains itself, which never invites and never
     refuses.

I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words,
All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings
     of the earth,
Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths
     of the earth,
Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print
     cannot touch.

I swear I see what is better than to tell the best,
It is always to leave the best untold.