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Leaves of Grass.
15

I, exultant, to be ready for them, will now shake out
carols stronger and haughtier than have ever yet
been heard upon the earth.

43.I will make the songs of passions, to give
them their way.
And your songs, offenders—for I scan you with
kindred eyes, and carry you with me the same
as any.

44.I will make the true poem of riches,
Namely, to earn for the body and the mind, what
adheres, and goes forward, and is not dropt by
death.

45.I will effuse egotism, and show it underlying all—
and I will be the bard of Personality;
And I will show of male and female that either is but
the equal of the other.
And I will show that there is no imperfection in male
or female, or in the earth, or in the present—
and can be none in the future.
And I will show that whatever happens to anybody, it
may be turned to beautiful results—And I will
show that nothing can happen more beautiful
than death;
And I will thread a thread through my poems that no
one thing in the universe is inferior to another thing.
And that all the things of the universe are perfect
miracles, each as profound as any.