Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them! They too are on the road--they are the swift and majestic men--they are the greatest women, Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas, Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land, HabituÈs of many distant countries, habituÈs of far distant dwellings, Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers, Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore, Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children, Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of coffins, Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years each emerging from that which preceded it, Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases, Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days, Journeyers gaily with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and well-grain'd manhood, Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass'd, content, Journeyers with their own sublime old age, of manhood or womanhood, Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death. Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless, To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights, To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to, Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys, To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it, To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it, To look up or down the road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits for you, To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither, To see no possession but may possess it, enjoying all without labour or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle of it, To take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's elegant villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens, To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through, To carry buildings and streets with you afterward where-ever you go, To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them, to gather the love out of their hearts. To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you, To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for travelling souls.