To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
I dare not shirk the similitude that interlocks me with all identities that exist, or ever have existed;
Air, soil, water—my qualities interpenetrate with theirs,
These and whatever belongs to them palpable show forth to me, and are seiz’d by me,
And I am seiz’d by them, and friendlily held by them.
This flowing filling sense of relationship, oh! it enters, explains, contains all,
Chiefly makes us what we are.

Mine is no callous shell,
I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
They are thousands, each one with his entry to himself,
They are always watching with their little eyes, from my head to my feet,
One no more than a point lets in and out of me such bliss and magnitude,
I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy.

My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me,
They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.
My brain has not held audience with messengers for nothing,
In an instant make I fluid and draw to myself, softly and duly, the whole of physical nature,
It shall all pass through me as a procession.

Partaker of influx and efflux, I too am of one phase and of all phases,
My tongue, every atom of my blood form’d from this soil, this air,
Materials that have existed in some way for billions of years,
Now entering into the form of the body,
All these tending fluidly and duly to myself—
And duly and fluidly to reappear again out of myself,
Every atom of my blood to be again this soil, this air,
Myself disintegrated, everyone disintegrated,
Yet part of the simple, compact, well-join’d scheme.

Only that individual becomes truly great who understands well that, while complete in himself in a certain sense, he is but a part of the divine, eternal scheme;
All is inextricable—things, spirits, nature, nations, you too.

I am he attesting sympathy,
(Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them?)
I am the largest lover and sympathizer that has appeared in literature.
This boundless offering of sympathy which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face,
How effective at last it all has become upon me, within whose breast the common heart is throbbing.

Greater than wires of iron, or treaties, or even strong mutual interest, is sympathy,
That mysterious sympathy which is the universal bond underlying all mankind,
I consider the sympathetic power of  men’s and women’s hearts to be the nighest of all we yet know to the unfathomable depth of all we do not yet know.

The human race is never separated,
Nor man nor woman escapes that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods;
This never-satisfied appetite for sympathy,
This terrible, irrepressible yearning,
Is surely more or less down underneath in most human souls.

Whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral dressed in his shroud—
But O the joy of compassionating!

 NEXT: THE OPEN ROAD

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