Thou Shalt

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the ani­mals, despise rich­es, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stu­pid and crazy, devote your income and labor to oth­ers, hate tyrants, argue not con­cern­ing God, have patience and indul­gence toward the peo­ple, take off your hat to noth­ing known or unknown or to any man or num­ber of men, go freely with pow­er­ful une­d­u­cat­ed per­sons and with the young and with the moth­ers of fam­i­lies, read these leaves in the open air every sea­son of every year of your life, re-exam­ine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dis­miss what­ev­er insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the rich­est flu­en­cy not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lash­es of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body…”
Pref­ace to Leaves of Grass — Walt Whit­man

2 thoughts on “Thou Shalt”

  1. I love read­ing Walt Whit­man. On the oth­er hand my poet­ry friend’s view of WW over the years have been luke­warm at best. Just an obser­va­tion.

  2. I think he’s pret­ty hit or miss. Tran­scen­den­tal­ism was always a bit too star-struck for my taste, and Whit­man is no excep­tion. This, how­ev­er, caught my eye.

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