< Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu
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173
Chants Democratic.
7. Think of loving and being loved;
- I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly upon you.
8. Think of the past;
- I warn you that in a little while, others will find their past in you and your times.
9. The race is never separated—nor man nor woman escapes,
- All is inextricable—things, spirits, nature, nations, you too—from precedents you come.
10. Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precede them;)
- Recall the sages, poets, saviours, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth,
- Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons—brother of slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseased persons.
11. Think of the time when you was not yet born,
- Think of times you stood at the side of the dying,
- Think of the time when your own body will be dying.
12. Think of spiritual results,
- Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects pass into spiritual results.
13. Think of manhood, and you to be a man;
- Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?
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