This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry, Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites, Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn’d-in nails, The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground, while he speculates well. This face is bitten by vermin and worms, And this is some murderer’s knife with a half-pull’d scabbard. This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee, An unceasing death-bell tolls there. 3 Features of my equals would you trick me with your creas’d and cadaverous march? Well, you cannot trick me. I see your rounded never-erased flow, I see ’neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises. Splay and twist as you like, poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats, You’ll be unmuzzled, you certainly will. I saw the face of the most smear’d and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum, And I knew for my consolation what they knew not, I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother, The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement, And I shall look again in a score or two of ages, And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and unharm’d, every inch as good as myself. 4 The Lord advances, and yet advances, Always the shadow in front, always the reach’d hand bringing up the laggards. Out of this face emerge banners and horses--O superb! I see what is coming, I see the high pioneer-caps, see staves of runners clearing the way, I hear victorious drums. This face is a life-boat, This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the rest, This face is flavor’d fruit ready for eating, This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good. These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake, They show their descent from the Master himself. Off the word I have spoken I except not one--red, white, black, are all deific, In each house is the ovum, it comes forth after a thousand years. Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me, Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me, I read the promise and patiently wait. This is a full-grown lily’s face, She speaks to the limber-hipp’d man near the garden pickets, Come here she blushingly cries, Come nigh to me limber-hipp’d man, Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you, Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast and shoulders. 5 The old face of the mother of many children, Whist! I am fully content. Lull’d and late is the smoke of the First-day morning, It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences, It hangs thin by the sassafras and wild-cherry and cat-brier under them.