“From this hour, freedom! Going where I like, my own master...”

“Why should I wish to see God better than this day?I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name,And I leave them where they are,for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.”

“Freedom: to walk free and own no superior”

“From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines.”

“Your true soul and body appear before me. 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 instrinsically in yourself. 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. I pursue you where none else has pursued you. Conceal you from others or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me. I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully 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.”

“Trippers and askers surround me,People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward andcity I live in, or the nation,The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors oldand new,My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or lossor lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,the fitful events;These come to me days and nights and go from me again,But they are not the Me myself.Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog withlinguists and contenders,I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait. ”

“I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.”