A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings, The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women, are sayings and meanings also. The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth, The masters know the earth’s words and use them more than audible words. Amelioration is one of the earth’s words, The earth neither lags nor hastens, It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump, It is not half beautiful only, defects and excrescences show just as much as perfections show. The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough, The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so conceal’d either, They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print, They are imbued through all things conveying themselves willingly, Conveying a sentiment and invitation, I utter and utter, I speak not, yet if you hear me not of what avail am I to you? To bear, to better, lacking these of what avail am I? (Accouche! accouchez! Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there? Will you squat and stifle there?) The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out, Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out. The earth does not exhibit itself nor refuse to exhibit itself, possesses still underneath, Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the wail of slaves, Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young people, accents of bargainers, Underneath these possessing words that never fall. To her children the words of the eloquent dumb great mother never fail, The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail and reflection does not fall, Also the day and night do not fall, and the voyage we pursue does not fall. Of the interminable sisters, Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters, Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters, The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest. With her ample back towards every beholder, With the fascinations of youth and the equal fascinations of age, Sits she whom I too love like the rest, sits undisturb’d, Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes glance back from it, Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none, Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.