1
GREAT are the myths—I too delight in them; | |
| Great are Adam and Eve—I too look back and accept them; | |
| Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests. | |
| Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower; | |
| Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, I sail, | 5 |
| I weather it out with you, or sink with you. | |
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| Great is Youth—equally great is Old Age—great are the Day and Night; | |
| Great is Wealth—great is Poverty—great is Expression—great is Silence. | |
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| Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force, fascination! | |
| Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination? | 10 |
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| Day, full-blown and splendid—Day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter, | |
| The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep, and restoring darkness. | |
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| Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality; | |
| But then the Soul’s wealth, which is candor, knowledge, pride, enfolding love; | |
| (Who goes for men and women showing Poverty richer than wealth?) | 15 |
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| Expression of speech! in what is written or said, forget not that Silence is also expressive, | |
| That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt as cold as the coldest, may be without words. | |
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2
Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is; | |
| Do you imagine it has stopt at this? the increase abandon’d? | |
| Understand then that it goes as far onward from this, as this is from the times when it lay in covering waters and gases, before man had appear’d. | 20 |
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| Great is the quality of Truth in man; | |
| The quality of truth in man supports itself through all changes, | |
| It is inevitably in the man—he and it are in love, and never leave each other. | |
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| The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight; | |
| If there be any Soul, there is truth—if there be man or woman there is truth—if there be physical or moral, there is truth; | 25 |
| If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth—if there be things at all upon the earth, there is truth. | |
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| O truth of the earth! I am determin’d to press my way toward you; | |
| Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea after you. | |
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3
Great is Language—it is the mightiest of the sciences, | |
| It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the earth, and of men and women, and of all qualities and processes; | 30 |
| It is greater than wealth—it is greater than buildings, ships, religions, paintings, music. | |
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| Great is the English speech—what speech is so great as the English? | |
| Great is the English brood—what brood has so vast a destiny as the English? | |
| It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new rule; | |
| The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the love, justice, equality in the Soul rule. | 35 |
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| Great is Law—great are the few old land-marks of the law, | |
| They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturb’d. | |
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4
Great is Justice! | |
| Justice is not settled by legislators and laws—it is in the Soul; | |
| It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the attraction of gravity, can; | 40 |
| It is immutable—it does not depend on majorities—majorities or what not, come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal. | |
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| For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges—is it in their Souls; | |
| It is well assorted—they have not studied for nothing—the great includes the less; | |
| They rule on the highest grounds—they oversee all eras, states, administrations. | |
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| The perfect judge fears nothing—he could go front to front before God; | 45 |
| Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—life and death shall stand back—heaven and hell shall stand back. | |
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5
Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever; | |
| Great is Death—sure as life holds all parts together, Death holds all parts together. | |
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| Has Life much purport?—Ah, Death has the greatest purport. | |
