Small the theme of my chant, yet the greatest—namely, one’s-self—
That wondrous thing, a simple separate person.

Underneath all, individuals,
I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals,
It is not the earth, it is I who am great or to be great, it is you up there, or anyone,
It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments, theories, through poems, pageants, shows, to form individuals;
Even for the treatment of the universal, in politics, metaphysics, or anything,
Sooner or later we come down to one single, solitary soul.

There is, in sanest hours, a consciousness, a thought that rises,
Independent, lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars, shining eternal,
This is the thought of identity—
Yours for you, whoever you are, as mine for me—
An eternal individuality, the pride and centripetal isolation of a human being in himself—identity, personalism.

The mystery of identity is the most curious mystery of all,
Miracle of miracles, beyond statement, most spiritual and vaguest of earth’s dreams,
Yet hardest basic fact, and only entrance to all facts.
Creeds, conventions, fall away and become of no account before this simple idea,
Once liberated and look’d upon, it expands over the whole earth,
And spreads to the roof of heaven.

In the centre of all, and object of all, stands the human being,
Towards whose heroic and spiritual evolution poems and everything directly or indirectly tend.
The universe prepares us by giving us identity,
Then the human soul stands in the centre,
And all the universes minister to it, and serve it and revolve round it;
They are one side of the whole and it is the other side,
The significant wonders of heaven and earth, significant only because of the me in the centre.

Today and here personal force—the power of personality, just or unjust—is behind everything.
All the others were singing the distinctions, and what was to be preferred,
Therefore I thought I would sing a song of inherent qualities in a man,
Indifferent whether they are right or wrong—
Celebrate the whole man, with his varied parts, animal, mental, and spiritual.
To me there is something curious, precious, inestimably eloquent, in the compound individuality that is in everyone,
We must see to it that every fellow is acknowledged for what he brings,
Not what we think he should bring.

But behind all the faculties of the human being—sight, the other senses, and even the emotions and the intellect—stands the real power, the mystical identity, the real I or me or you.

To man, to woman, what is there at last to each?
Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?
Nothing endures but personal qualities,
The inherent soul, nativity, idiocrasy.
When shows break up, what but one’s-self is sure?
One’s-self must never give way; that is the final substance, that out of all is sure.

Allowing a place for every man’s personality, idiosyncracy, the precious idiocrasy and special nativity and intention that he is—I hope that is the keystone of the arch of my teachings—the man’s self the main thing, free, highest-poised, soaring its own flight, following out itself, starting from one’s-self and coming back to one’s-self.
Nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s-self.

NEXT: THE POET’S IDENTITY

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).