l prevail through the
universe ... but the gaggery and gilt of a million years will not
prevail. Who troubles himself about his ornaments or fluency is lost.
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for
the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate
tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward
the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any
man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and
with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in
the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine
all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss
whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great
poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the
silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes
and in every motion and joint of your body.... The poet shall not
spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is
always ready ploughed and manured ... others may not know it but he
shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall
master the trust of everything he touches ... and shall master all
attachment.

The known universe has one complete lover and that is the greatest
poet. He consumes an eternal passion and is indifferent which chance
happens and which possible contingency of fortune or misfortune and
persuades daily and hourly his delicious pay. What baulks or breaks
others is fuel for his burning progress to contact and amorous joy.
Other proportions of the reception of pleasure dwindle to nothing to
his proportions. All expected from heaven or from the highest he is
rapport with in the sight of the daybreak or a scene of the winter
woods or the presence of children playing or with his arm round
the neck of a man or woman. His love above all love has leisure and
expanse ... he leaves room ahead of himself. He is no irresolute
or suspicious lover ... he is sure ... he scorns intervals. His
experience and the showers and thrills are not for nothing. Nothing
can jar him ... suffering and darkness cannot--death and fear cannot.
To him complaint and jealousy and envy are corpses buried and rotten
in the earth ... he saw them buried. The sea is not surer of the shore
or the shore of the sea than he is of the fruition of his love and