I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers.
TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-ward resumes its liberty.
But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?
Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.
Be not dishearten’d – Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet; Those who love each other shall become invincible.
For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!
Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, if I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.
Clear and sweet is my soul, clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the whole earth. I have look’d for equals and lovers an found them ready for me in all lands, I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery here we stand.
The sum of all known value and respect, I add up in you, whoever you are.
Camden was originally an accident, but I shall never be sorry I was left over in Camden. It has brought me blessed returns.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean.
O the joy of my spirit – it is uncaged – it darts like lightning! It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, I will have thousands of globes and all time.
From this hour, freedom! Going where I like, my own master...
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of a man.
All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.
Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose; Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful? Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?
After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on – have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear – what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons – the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.