door by chance, or open'd
    window,
Pausing, inclining, baring my head, you specially I greet,
To draw and clinch your soul for once inseparably with mine,
Then travel travel on.

1876 1881

VOCALISM

1

Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the
    divine power to speak words;
Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long trial? from
    vigorous practice? from physique?
Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?
Come duly to the divine power to speak words?
For only at last after many years, after chastity, friendship,
    procreation, prudence, and nakedness,
After treading ground and breasting river and lake,
After a loosen'd throat, after absorbing eras, temperaments,
    races, after knowledge, freedom, crimes,
After complete faith, after clarifyings, elevations, and removing
    obstructions,
After these and more, it is just possible there comes to a man,
    a woman, the divine power to speak words;
Then toward that man or that woman swiftly hasten all —
    none refuse, all attend,
Armies, ships, antiquities, libraries, paintings, machines,
    cities, hate, despair, amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration,
    form in close ranks,
They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently
    through the mouth of that man or that woman.

2

O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?
Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I
    shall follow,
As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere
    around the globe.

All waits for the right voices;
Where is the practis'd and perfect organ? where is the develop'd
    soul?
For I see every word utter'd thence has deeper, sweeter, new
    sounds, impossible on less terms.
I see brains and lips closed, tympans and temples unstruck,
Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to
    unclose,
Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what
    lies slumbering forever ready in all words.

1860 1881

TO HIM THAT WAS CRUCIFIED

My spirit to yours dear brother,
Do not mind because many sounding your name do not
    understand you,
I do not sound your name, but I understand you,
I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to
    salute those who are with you, before and since, and
    those to come also,
That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and
    succession,
We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all
    theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject
    not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted,
We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions,
    jealousies, recriminations on every side,
They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying
    up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon
    time and the diverse eras,
Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of
    races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as
    we are.

1860 1881

YOU FELONS ON TRIAL IN COURTS

You felons on trial in courts,
You convicts in prison-cells, you sentenced assassins chain'd
    and hand- cuff'd with iron,
Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?
Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not
    chain'd with iron, or my ankles with iron?
You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs or obscene in
    your rooms,
Who am I that I should call you more obscene than myself?
O culpable! I acknowledge