Of these years I sing, How they pass through convulsed pains, as through parturitions; How America illustrates birth, gigantic youth, the promise, the sure fulfilment, despite of people--Illustrates evil as well as good; How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity; How few see the arrived models, the athletes, the States--or see freedom or spirituality--or hold any faith in results. But I see the athletes--and I see the results glorious and inevitable--and they again leading to other results; How the great cities appear--How the Democratic masses, turbulent, wilful, as I love them, How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the sounding and resounding, keep on and on; How society waits unformed, and is between things ended and things begun; How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of freedom, and of the Democracies, and of the fruits of society, and of all that is begun; And how the States are complete in themselves--And how all triumphs and glories are complete in themselves, to lead onward, And how these of mine, and of the States, will in their turn be convulsed, and serve other parturitions and transitions. And how all people, sights, combinations, the Democratic masses, too, serve--and how every fact serves, And how now, or at any time, each serves the exquisite transition of Death. _TO WORKING MEN._ 1. Come closer to me; Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess; Yield closer and closer, and give me the best you possess. This is unfinished business with me--How is it with you? (I was chilled with the cold types, cylinder, wet paper between us.) Male and Female! I pass so poorly with paper and types, I must pass with the contact of bodies and souls. American masses! I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking the touch of me--I know that it is good for you to do so. 2. This is the poem of occupations; In the labour of engines and trades, and the labour of fields, I find the developments, And find the eternal meanings. Workmen and Workwomen! Were all educations, practical and ornamental, well displayed out of me, what would it amount to? Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman, what would it amount to? Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you? The learned, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms; A man like me, and never the usual terms. Neither a servant nor a master am I; I take no sooner a large price than a small price--I will have my own, whoever enjoys me; I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me.