< Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu
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Chants Democratic.
:Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery!
- Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your destination?)
- Let trillions of men and women be mocked with bodies and mocked with Souls!
- Let the love that waits in them, wait! Let it die, or pass still-born to other spheres!
- Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres!
- Let contradictions prevail! Let one thing contradict another! and let one line of my poems contradict another!
- Let the people sprawl with yearning aimless hands!
- Let their tongues be broken! Let their eyes be discouraged! Let none descend into their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love!
- Let the theory of America be management, caste, comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?)
- Let them that distrust birth and death lead the rest! (Say! why shall they not lead you?)
- Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! Let the days be darker than the nights! Let slumber bring less slumber than waking-time brings!
- Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all made!
- Let the heart of the young man exile itself from the heart of the old man ! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from that of the young man!
- Let the sun and moon go! Let scenery take the applause of the audience! Let there be apathy under the stars!
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