I have seen doubters, with a puny joy, Accept amusement for their little while And feed upon some nourishing employ But otherwise shake their wise heads and smile-- Protesting that one man can no more move the mass For good or ill Than could the ancients kindle the sun By tying torches to a wheel and rolling it downhill. But not the wet circumference of the seas Can quench the living light in even these, These who forget, Eating the fruits of earth, That nothing ever has been done To spur the spirit of mankind, Which has not come to pass Forth from the heart and mind Of some one man, through other men birth after birth, In thoughts that dare And in deeds that share And in a will resolved to find A finer breath Born in the deep maternity of death. ... If these be ecstasies of youth, Yet they are news of which all time has need. If they be lies, tell them yourselves and heed How poets' twice-told lies become the truth! There was a poet Celia loved who, hearing all around The multitudinous tread Of common majesty, (A hearty immigrant was he!) Made of the gathering insurgent sound Another continent of poetry? His name is writ in his blood, mine and yours. ... "And when he celebrates These States," She said, "how can Americans worth their salt But listen to the wavesong on their shores, The waves and Walt, And hear the windsong over rock and wood, The winds and Walt, And let the mansong enter at their gates And know that it is good!" Walt Whitman, by his perfect friendliness Has let me guess That into Celia, into me, He and unnumbered dead have come To be our intimates, To make of us their home Commingling earth and heaven.... That by our true and mutual deeds We shall at last be shriven Of these hypocrisies and jealous creeds And petty separate fates-- That I in every man and he in me, Together making God, are gradually creating whole The single soul. Somebody called Walt Whitman-- Dead! He is alive instead, Alive as I am. When I lift my head, His head is lifted. When his brave mouth speaks, My lips contain his word. And when his rocker creaks Ghostly in Camden, there I sit in it and watch my hand grow old And take upon my constant lips the kiss of younger truth.... It is my joy to tell and to be told That he, in all the world and me, Cannot be dead, That I, in all the world and him, youth after youth Shall lift my head. V There is a vision, Celia, in your face....