UNNAMED LANDS. 1. NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before Thes States, Garnered clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travelled their course, and passed on; What vast-built cities- What orderly republics- What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions, physiology and phrenology, What What of liberty and slavery among them-What Who were witty and wise- Who beautiful and poetic Not a mark, not a record remains remains. And yet all 2. O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing, I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to it, and as all will henceforth belong to it. 3. Afar they stand — yet near to me they stand, Some with oval countenances, learned and calm, Some naked and savage- Some like huge collections of insects, Some in tents-herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horse men, Some prowling through woods-Some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping, filling barns, Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments. 4. Are those billions of men really gone? Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone? Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us? Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves? 5. I believe of all those billions of men and women that filled the unnamed lands, every one exists this hour, here or elsewhere, invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinned, in life. 6. I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me; Of their languages, phrenology, government, coins, medals, marriage, literature, products, games, jurisprudence, wars, manners, amativeness, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world, I suspect I shall meet them there, I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands. KOSMOS. WHO includes diversity, and is Nature, Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also, Who has not looked forth from the windows, the eyes, for nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing; Who contains believers and disbelievers - Who is the most majestic lover; Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism spiritualism, and of the aesthetic, or intellectual Who, having considered the body, finds all its organ and parts good; Who, out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her body, understands by subtle analogies, the theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of These States; Who believes not only in our globe, with its sun and moon, but in other globes, with their suns and moons; Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day, but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations, The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together. A HAND-MIRROR. HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?) Outside fair costume - within, ashes and filth, No more a flashing eye- no more a sonorous voice or springy step, Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step, A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh, Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous, Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination, Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams, Words babble, hearing and touch callous, No brain, no heart left- no magnetism of sex; Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence, Such a result so soon- and from such a beginning! BEGINNERS. How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,) How dear and dreadful they are to the earth, TESTS.-SAVANTISM. — PERFECTIONS. 313 How they inure to themselves as much as to anyWhat a paradox appears, their age, How people respond to them, yet know them not, How there is something relentless in their fate, all times, How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase. TESTS. ALL submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis, in the Soul; Not traditions not the outer authorities are the judges they are the judges of outer authorities, and of all traditions, They corroborate as they go, only whatever corroborates themselves, and touches themselves, For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far and near, without one exception. SAVANTISM. THITHER, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close, always obligated; Thither hours, months, years - thither trades, compacts, establishments, even the most minute, Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates, Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant, As a father, to his father going, takes his children along with him. PERFECTIONS. ONLY themselves understand themselves, and th like of themselves, As Souls only understand Souls. SAYS. 1. I SAY whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is finally right. 2. I SAY nourish a great intellect, a great brain; retract it. 3. I SAY man shall not hold property in man; I say the least developed person on earth is just as important and sacred to himself or herself, as the most developed person is to himself or herself. 4. I SAY where liberty draws not the blood out of slavery, there slavery draws the blood out of liberty, I say the word of the good old cause in These States, and resound it hence over the world. 5. I SAY the human shape or face is so great, it must never be made ridiculous; I say for ornaments nothing outré can be allowed, And that anything is most beautiful without ornament, And that exaggerations will be sternly revenged in your own physiology, and in other persons' physiology also; |