29.1.10

__ song of myself __


" I celebrate myself, and sing myself ,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you .

I loafe and invite my soul ,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass . . ."

-Walt Whitman

__ In the prophetic literature of these states . . . Nature, true Nature, and the true idea of Nature ,
long absent, must , above all , become fully restored, enlarged , and must furnish
the pervading atmosphere to poems , and the test of all high literary and esthetic compositions.
I do not mean the smooth walks, trimm'd hedges , poseys and nightingales of the
English poets , but the whole orb , with its geologic history, the kosmos , carrying fire and snow ,
that rolls through illimitable areas , light as a feather , though weighing billions of tons .
__ Democratic Vistas