Leaves of Grass (Completed)

BOOK 15

} A Song for Occupations

1 A song for occupations! In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments, And find the eternal meanings.

Workmen and Workwomen! Were all educations practical and ornamental well display'd out of me, what would it amount to? Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman, what would it amount to? Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?

The learn'd, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms, A man like me and never the usual terms.

Neither a servant nor a master I, I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have my own whoever enjoys me, I will be even with you and you shall be even with me.

If you stand at work in a shop I stand as nigh as the nighest in the same shop, If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend, If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome, If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake, If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw'd deeds? If you carouse at the table I carouse at the opposite side of the table, If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why I often meet strangers in the street and love them.

Why what have you thought of yourself? Is it you then that thought yourself less? Is it you that thought the President greater than you? Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?

(Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or a thief, Or that you are diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a prostitute, Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar and never saw your name in print, Do you give in that you are any less immortal?)

2 Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable and untouching, It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or no, I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.

Grown, half-grown and babe, of this country and every country, in-doors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see, And all else behind or through them.

The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband, The daughter, and she is just as good as the son, The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father.

Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades, Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms, Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants, All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see, None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me.

I bring what you much need yet always have, Not money, amours, dress, eating, erudition, but as good, I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the value itself.

There is something that comes to one now and perpetually, It is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed, it eludes discussion and print, It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this book, It is for you whoever you are, it is no farther from you than your hearing and sight are from you, It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest, it is ever provoked by them.

You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it, You may read the President's message and read nothing about it there, Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or in the daily papers or weekly papers, Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of stock.

3 The sun and stars that float in the open air, The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them is something grand, I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness, And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation or bon-mot or reconnoissance, And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without luck must be a failure for us, And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.