The markets, the government, the working-man's wages—to think what account
they are through our nights and days!
To think that other working-men will make just as great account of them—
yet we make little or no account!
The vulgar and the refined—what you call sin, and what you call goodness—
to think how wide a difference!
To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond
the difference.
To think how much pleasure there is!
Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems?
Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a
nomination and election? or with your wife and family?
Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful
maternal cares?
These also flow onward to others—you and I fly onward,
But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.
Your farm, profits, crops,—to think how engrossed you are! To think there will still be farms, profits, crops—yet for you, of what avail?
6.
What will be will be well—for what is is well;
To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.
The sky continues beautiful, The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated, nor the pleasure of women with men, nor the pleasure from poems; The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses—these are not phantasms—they have weight, form, location; Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them phantasms; The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion, The earth is not an echo—man and his life, and all the things of his life, are well-considered.
You are not thrown to the winds—you gather certainly and safely around
yourself;
Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, for ever and ever!
7.
It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father—it
is to identify you;
It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should
be decided;
Something long preparing and formless is arrived and formed in you,
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.