Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/126

118 Are you faithful to things? Do you teach whatever
 * the land and sea, the bodies of men, womanhood,
 * amativeness, angers, excesses, crimes, teach?

Have you sped through customs, laws, popularities? Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies,
 * whirls, fierce contentions? Are you very strong?
 * Are you of the whole people?

Are you not of some coterie? some school or religion? Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating
 * to life itself?

Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of
 * These States?

Have you sucked the nipples of the breasts of the
 * mother of many children?

Have you too the old, ever-fresh, forbearance and
 * impartiality?

Do you hold the like love for those hardening to
 * maturity? for the last-born? little and big?
 * and for the errant?

What is this you bring my America? Is it uniform with my country? Is it not something that has been better told or done
 * before?

Have you not imported this, or the spirit of it, in
 * some ship?

Is it a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness? Has it never dangled at the heels of the poets, politicians,
 * literats, of enemies' lands?

Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is
 * still here?

Does it answer universal needs? Will it improve
 * manners?