“Say on, sayers! sing on, singers! Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth! Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost, It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use, When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.”

“When the materials are ready, the architects shall appear.”

“I Think it is lost.....but nothing is ever lost nor can be lost .The body sluggish, aged, cold, the ember left from earlier fires shall duly flame again.”

“Songs of myselfThese are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing. This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, This the common air that bathes the globe.”

“Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,) Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it mostly to me? For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, Now I have heard you, Now in a moment I know what I am for—I awake, 150And already a thousand singers—a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours, A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, Never to die. O you singer, solitary, singing by yourself—projecting me; O solitary me, listening—nevermore shall I cease perpetuating you; 155Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there, in the night, By the sea, under the yellow and sagging moon, The messenger there arous’d—the fire, the sweet hell within, 160The unknown want, the destiny of me.”

“Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much? Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?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 your self.”

“I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,Those of mechanics, each one singing his as itshould be blithe and strong,The carpenter singing his as he measures his plankor beam,The mason singing his as he makes ready for work,or leaves off work,The boatman singing what belongs to him in hisboat, the deckhand singing on the steamboatdeck,The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, thehatter singing as he stands,The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on hisway in the morning, or at noon intermissionor at sundown,The delicious singing of the mother, or of theyoung wife at work, or of the girl sewing orwashing,Each singing what belongs to him or her and tonone else,The day what belongs to the day — at night theparty of young fellows, robust, friendly,Singing with open mouths their strong melodioussongs.”