Song of Myself (Extract)

I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease... observing a spear of summer grass. (...) Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun... there are millions of suns left, You shall no longer take things at second or third hand    ...nor look through the eyes of the dead... nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself. (...) Swiftly arouse and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge     That pass all the art and argument of the earth; An I know that the hand of god is the elderhand of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers...     and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love; And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, And mossy scabs of the wormfence, and heaped stones,     and elder and mullen and pokeweed. (Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass, "Song of Myself")