To You
by Walt
Whitman
Whoever you are, I fear you are
walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities
are to melt from under your feet
and hands,
Even now your features, joys,
speech, house, trade, manners,
troubles, follies, costume,
crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear
before me,
They stand forth out of affairs,
out of commerce, shops, work,
farms, clothes, the house, buying,
selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.
Whoever you are, now I place my
hand upon you, that you be
my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to
your ear,
I have loved many women and men,
but I love none better than
you.
O I have been dilatory and
dumb,
I should have made my way straight
to you long ago,
I should have blabb'd nothing but
you, I should have chanted
nothing but you.
I will leave all and come and make
the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I
understand you,
None has done justice to you, you
have not done justice to
yourself,
None but has found you imperfect,
I only find no imperfection in
you,
None but would subordinate you, I
only am he who will never
consent to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you
no master, owner, better,
God, beyond what waits
intrinsically in yourself.
Painters have painted their
swarming groups and the centre-
figure of all,
From the head of the centre-figure
spreading a nimbus of gold-
color'd light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but
paint no head without its
nimbus of gold-color'd
light,
From my hand from the brain of
every man and woman it
streams, effulgently flowing
forever.
O I could sing such grandeurs and
glories about you!
You have not known what you are,
you have slumber'd upon
yourself all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as
closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already
in mockeries,
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers,
if they do not return in
mockeries, what is their
return?)
The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I
see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has
pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant
expression, the night, the
accustom'd routine, if these
conceal you from others or from yourself, they do not conceal you from
me,
The shaved face, the unsteady eye,
the impure complexion, if
these balk others they do not balk
me,
The pert apparel, the deform'd
attitude, drunkenness, greed,
premature death, all these I part
aside.
There is no endowment in man or
woman that is not tallied in
you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in
man or woman, but as good is
in you,
No pluck, no endurance in others,
but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others,
but an equal pleasure waits for
you.
As for me, I give nothing to any
one except I give the like
carefully to you,
I sing the songs of the glory of
none, not God, sooner than I
sing the songs of the glory
of you.
Whoever you are! claim your own at
an hazard!
These shows of the East and West
are tame compared to you,
These immense meadows, these
interminable rivers, you are
immense and interminable as
they,
These furies, elements, storms,
motions of Nature, throes of
apparent dissolution, you are he
or she who is master or mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own
right over Nature, elements,
pain, passion, dissolution.
The hopples fall from your ankles,
you find an unfailing
sufficiency,
Old or young, male or female,
rude, low, rejected by the rest,
whatever you are promulges
itself,
Through birth, life, death,
burial, the means are provided,
nothing is scanted,
Through angers, losses, ambition,
ignorance, ennui, what you
are picks its way.
