Great is Law-great are the few old' land-marks of the law
They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturb'd.2

Great is Justice!

4

Justice is not settled by legislators and laws-it is in the Soul; It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the attraction of gravity, can;

40

It is immutable-it does not depend on majorities-majorities or what not, come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.

For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges-is it in their Souls;

It is well assorted-they have not studied for nothing-the great includes the less;

They rule on the highest grounds-they oversee all eras, states, administrations.

The perfect judge fears nothing-he could go front to front before God;

Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—life and death shall stand back-heaven and hell shall stand back.*

5

Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever;

Great is Death-sure as life holds all parts together, Death holds all parts together.

Has Life much purport?-Ah, Death has the greatest purport.

1 1855 '56 '60 '67 for "few old" read "old few."

2 1855 '56. After line 37 read "Great are marriage, commerce, newspapers, books, free-trade, railroads, steamers, international mails, telegraphs, exchanges." 1860 reads as above, omitting "marriage."

31855 '56 '60 for "is it" read "it is."

After line 46, 1855 '56 '60 read:

"Great is Goodness!

I do not know what it is, any more than I know what health is-but I know it is great.

Great is Wickedness-I find I often admire it, just as much as I admire good

ness.

Do you call that a paradox? It certainly is a paradox.

POEM OF REMEMBRANCE FOR A GIRL OR A BOY OF THESE STATES.

First published in 1856.

You just maturing youth! You male or female!
Remember the organic compact of These States,

Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty, equality of man,

Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The States, signed in black and white by the Commissioners, and read by Washington at the head of the army, Remember the purposes of the founders,-Remember Washington;

Remember the copious humanity streaming from every direction toward America;

Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations and men ; (Cursed be nation, woman, man, without hospitality!) Remember, government is to subserve individuals,

Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more than you or

me,

Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less than you or

me.

ΙΟ

Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the hundred, or two hundred millions, of equal freemen and freewomen, amicably joined.

Recall

ages-One

age is but a part-ages are but a part;

The eternal equilibrium of things is great, and the eternal overthrow of things

is great,

And there is another paradox.

Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever,

Great is Death--s

--sure as Life holds all parts together, Death holds all parts together."

1855 closes poem with "Sure as the stars return again after they merge in the light, death is great as life." 1856 '60 omit above line and add :

Death has just as much purport as Life has.

Do you enjoy what Life confers? you shall enjoy what Death confers.

I do not understand the realities of Death, but I know they are great;

I do not understand the least reality of Life-how then can I understand the realities of Death?"

1 Line I added in 1860.

Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions, of the idea of caste,

Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.

Anticipate the best women;

I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined women are to spread through all These States,

I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable, dauntless, just the same as a boy.

Anticipate your own life-retract with merciless power,

Shirk nothing-retract in time-Do you see those errors, diseases, weaknesses, lies, thefts?

Do you see that lost character?-Do you see decay, consumption, rum-drinking, dropsy, fever, mortal cancer or inflammation?

Do you see death, and the approach of death?

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THINK OF THE SOUL.

First published in 1856. In that edition and in 1860 it is a continuation of" Poem of Remembrance," that part being discarded in the 1870 edition.

THINK of the Soul;

I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to live in other spheres ;

I do not know how, but I know it is so.

Think of loving and being loved;

I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly upon you.

Think of the past;

I warn you that in a little while others will find their past in you and your times.

The race is never separated-nor man nor woman escapes; All is inextricable-things, spirits, Nature, nations, you toofrom precedents you come.

Recall the ever-welcome

them ;)

defiers, (The mothers precede

ΙΟ

Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers, of the

earth;

Recail Christ, brother of rejected persons-brother of slaves, feions, idiots, and of insane and diseas'd persons.

Think of the time when you were not yet born;
Think of times you stood at the side of the dying ;
Think of the time when your own body will be dying.

Think of spiritual results,

Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects pass into spiritual results.

Think of manhood, and you to be a man;

Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood, nothing?

Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;
The creation is womanhood;

Have I not said that womanhood involves all?

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Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best womanhood?

RESPONDEZ!

First published in 1856 under title of "Poem of the Proposition of Nakedness;" in 1860 as "Chants Democratic;" in 1867 '70 under this title.

No. 5,

RESPONDEZ! Respondez !

(The war is completed-the price is paid-the title is settled beyond recall ;)'

Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade !2

Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking ?3

Let me bring this to a close-I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles ;*

Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was behind advance to the front and speak ;

Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions !

1 Line 2 added in 1870.

1856 '60 add "not you any more than others."

66

3 Line 4 added in 1860, which reads "If it really be as is pretended how much longer must we go on," etc. 1867 reads How much longer must we go on," etc.

* Line 5 added in 1860,

Let the old propositions be postponed !!

Let faces and theories be turn'd inside out! let meanings be freely criminal, as well as results!2

Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery! 10 Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your destination?)

Let men and women3 be mock'd with bodies and mock'd with

Souls!

Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass stillborn to other spheres!

Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres !

Let contradictions prevail ! let one thing contradict another! and let one line of my poems contradict another!

Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their tongues be broken! let their eyes be discouraged! let none descend into their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love!

(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private corruption

Smother'd in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountainhigh;

Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean's waves around and upon you, O my days! my lands!

For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the war, have purified the atmosphere ;)

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-Let the theory of America still be management, caste, comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?)

Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say! why shall they not lead you?)

Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be darker than the nights! let slumber bring less slumber than waking time brings!

Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all

made!

Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart of the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from that of the young man !

1 Lines 6, 7, 8, with lines 65 and 66, afterwards published under title of "Reversals.'

2 1856 adds" (Say! can results be criminal, and meanings not criminal ?)”’ 31856 '60 '67 read "Let trillions of men and women, etc.

Lines 17-20 added in 1870.

* Lines 22, 44 and 46 afterwards published under title of " Transpositions.”