1.
Come closer to me;
Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess;
Yield closer and closer, and give me the best you possess.
This is unfinished business with me—How is it with you?
(I was chilled with the cold types, cylinder, wet paper between us.)
Male and Female! I pass so poorly with paper and types, I must pass with the contact of bodies and souls.
American masses! I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking the touch of me—I know that it is good for you to do so.
2.
This is the poem of occupations;
In the labour of engines and trades, and the labour of fields, I find the
developments,
And find the eternal meanings.
Workmen and Workwomen!
Were all educations, practical and ornamental, well displayed out of me,
what would it amount to?
Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman, what
would it amount to?
Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?
The learned, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms;
A man like me, and never the usual terms.
Neither a servant nor a master am I;
I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I will have my own,
whoever enjoys me;
I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me.
If you stand at work in a shop, I stand as nigh as the nighest in the same shop; If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend, I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend; If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome; If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake; If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I cannot remember my own foolish and outlawed deeds? If you carouse at the table, I carouse at the opposite side of the table; If you meet some stranger in the streets, and love him or her—why I often meet strangers in the street, and love them.