Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/60

52

I am he attesting sympathy, Shall I make my list of things in the house, and skip
 * the house that supports them?

I am the poet of common sense, and of the
 * demonstrable, and of immortality,

And am not the poet of goodness only—I do not
 * decline to be the poet of wickedness also.

Washes and razors for foofoos—for me freckles and
 * a bristling beard.

What blurt is this about virtue and about vice? Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me—I
 * stand indifferent,

My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait, I moisten the roots of all that has grown.

Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging
 * pregnancy?

Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be worked
 * over and rectified?

I step up to say that what we do is right, and what
 * we affirm is right—and some is only the ore of
 * right,

Witnesses of us—one side a balance, and the
 * antipodal side a balance,

Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine, Thoughts and deeds of the present, our rouse and
 * early start.

This minute that comes to me over the past decillions, There is no better than it and now.