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NOW list to my morning’s romanza—I tell the signs of the Answerer; | |
| To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me. | |
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| A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother; | |
| How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother? | |
| Tell him to send me the signs. | 5 |
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| And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand, and his left hand in my right hand, | |
| And I answer for his brother, and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all, and send these signs. | |
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2
Him all wait for—him all yield up to—his word is decisive and final, | |
| Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves, as amid light, | |
| Him they immerse, and he immerses them. | 10 |
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| Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people, animals, | |
| The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my morning’s romanza;) | |
| All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will buy, | |
| The best farms—others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps, | |
| The noblest and costliest cities—others grading and building, and he domiciles there; | 15 |
| Nothing for any one, but what is for him—near and far are for him, the ships in the offing, | |
| The perpetual shows and marches on land, are for him, if they are for any body. | |
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| He puts things in their attitudes; | |
| He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love; | |
| He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them. | 20 |
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| He is the answerer: | |
| What can be answer’d he answers—and what cannot be answer’d, he shows how it cannot be answer’d. | |
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3
A man is a summons and challenge; | |
| (It is vain to skulk—Do you hear that mocking and laughter? Do you hear the ironical echoes?) | |
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| Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down, seeking to give satisfaction; | 25 |
| He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also. | |
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| Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely, by day or by night; | |
| He has the pass-key of hearts—to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs. | |
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| His welcome is universal—the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is; | |
| The person he favors by day, or sleeps with at night, is blessed. | 30 |
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4
Every existence has its idiom—everything has an idiom and tongue; | |
| He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and any man translates himself also; | |
| One part does not counteract another part—he is the joiner—he sees how they join. | |
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| He says indifferently and alike, How are you, friend? to the President at his levee, | |
| And he says, Good-day, my brother! to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field, | 35 |
| And both understand him, and know that his speech is right. | |
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| He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol, | |
| He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another, Here is our equal, appearing and new. | |
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| Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, | |
| And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow’d the sea, | 40 |
| And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist, | |
| And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them; | |
| No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has follow’d it, | |
| No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there. | |
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| The English believe he comes of their English stock, | 45 |
| A Jew to the Jew he seems—a Russ to the Russ—usual and near, removed from none. | |
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| Whoever he looks at in the traveler’s coffee-house claims him, | |
| The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard is sure, and the island Cuban is sure; | |
| The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or Sacramento, or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him. | |
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| The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood; | 50 |
| The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of him—he strangely transmutes them, | |
| They are not vile any more—they hardly know themselves, they are so grown. | |