Humanity and Solidarity

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves, The brilliant moon and all the milky sky, And all that famous harmony of leaves, Had blotted out man’s image and his cry.

For the Colonel’s Lady an’ Judy O’Grady Are sisters under their skins!

The Liner she’s a lady, an’ she never looks nor ’eeds— The Man-o’-War’s ’er ’usband, an’ ’e gives ’er all she needs, But, oh, the little cargo boats that sail the wet seas roun’, They’re just the same as you an’ me a-plyin’ up and down!

Though I’ve belted you an’ flayed you, By the livin’ Gawd that made you, You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

I have eaten your bread and salt. I have drunk your water and wine. The deaths ye died I have watched beside And the lives ye led were mine.

No! the two kinds of people on earth that I mean Are the people who lift and the people who lean.

I thought that nature was enough Till Human nature came But that the other did absorb As Parallax a Flame—

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world.

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, No more modest than immodest. Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.

O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence.

Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone, Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are; Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.

All your strength is in your union. All your danger is in discord; Therefore be at peace henceforward, And as brothers live together.

I am the owner of the sphere, Of the seven stars and the solar year, Of Caesar’s hand, and Plato’s brain, Of Lord Christ’s heart, and Shakespeare’s strain.

Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor’s creed has lent. All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone.

Is made of love and friendship, and sits high Upon the forehead of humanity.

And other spirits there are standing apart Upon the forehead of the age to come; These, these will give the world another heart, And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings _____ ? Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.

Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number— Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you— Ye are many—they are few.

Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle.

He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.

Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.

One great society alone on earth: The noble Living and the noble Dead.

But Europe at that time was thrilled with joy, France standing on the top of golden hours, And human nature seeming born again.