I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself,
Become any presence or truth of humanity,
Merged in any affair or person.
I am of the foolish as much as the wise,
Contain believers and disbelievers, ignorant and accomplished,
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,
Thinker of the thoughts of all men in all ages,
Scheming, storming, planning, loving, cautioning.

Appreciator of the nearest and readiest, and traveller from the most distant and diverse, I am merged in any affair or person—
I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician,
A carpenter, a blacksmith, a gentleman,
A farmer, cook, mechanic, sailor, lover,
A prisoner, lawyer, or artist, fancy-man, rowdy, physician, or priest,
He who has been famous and he who shall be famous after today,
The stammerer, the well-form’d person, the wasted or feeble person.

I assume and become any character, one after another—
Mechanic, author, artist or schoolboy, child uttering fancies about the grass,
Curious meditator reclining on a bank of a summer forenoon, and holding a long colloquy of love with his own soul,
Friendly mate and companion of people,
One of a chowder-party with boatmen or clam-diggers,
(Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,
I laugh and work with them,)
Or bathing with bathers by the sea-side,
Or hunting alone over the mountains or far in the wilds.

I loosen myself, pass freely, swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen;
Maternal as well as paternal—
It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman’s,
I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my grandson’s stockings.

I am of old and young, of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
Not only an American, but an African, European, and Asiatic—
I see the cities of the earth, and make myself at random a part of them,
Not merely of the New World but of Africa, Europe, or Asia.
I am a real Parisian,
I am a habitan of Vienna, Constantinople,
I am of Melbourne, I am of London, Madrid, Lyons, Florence,
I belong in Moscow, Cracow, or northward in Stockholm, or in Siberian Irkutsk,
I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.

I see where the sleepers are sleeping, 
The city sleeps and the country sleeps.
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,
I sleep close with the other sleepers each in turn,
I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
And I become the other dreamers.

All these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.

Askers embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them,
I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg,
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe,
I am at the mother’s breast with the little child,
Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of ages, baffled feud and hatreds—
These become mine and me every one, and they are but little,
I become as much more as I like.

I entertain all the aches of the human heart and feel the dull unintermitted pain,
My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe,
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, 
I myself become the wounded person.

I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
My voice is the wife’s voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,
They fetch my man’s body up dripping and drown’d.
Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp,
My face is ash-color’d, my sinews gnarl, away from me people retreat.

All this I swallow, it tastes good,
I like it well, it becomes all mine,
All this I not only feel and see but am,
I am the man, I suffer’d, I was there—
Agonies are one of my changes of garments.

What is more subtle than this which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?
Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,
Always me joined with you,
You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.
I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me,
Incarnate me as I have incarnated you! whoever you are—
Though I am with you no more than I am with everybody,
None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me.

NEXT: THE POET IS EVERY EVIL

The texts in this anthology should NOT be cited as direct quotations from Whitman. If you want to quote from this site for something you are writing or posting, please read this first (click here).