Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/400

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
392
Leaves of Grass.

4.I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of
you;
None have understood you, but I understand you,
None have done justice to you—you have not done
justice to yourself,
None but have found you imperfect—I only find no
imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you—I only am he who
will never consent to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master, owner,
better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in
yourself.

5.Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the
centre figure of all,
From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus
of gold-colored light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without
its nimbus of gold-colored light,
From my hand, from the brain of every man and
woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever.

6.O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are—you have slumbered
upon yourself all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of
the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return
in mockeries, what is their return?

7.The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,