Hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,
Gone freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young, and with the mothers of families,
Read these leaves to myself in the open air, tried them by trees, stars, rivers,
Dismiss’d whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body,
Claim’d nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim’d for others on the same terms,
Sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State,
(Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean’d to breathe his last,
This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish’d, rais’d, restor’d,
To life recalling many a prostrate form;)
I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself,