This page has been validated.
320
Leaves of Grass.

22.Now I reëxamine philosophies and religions,
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove
at all under the spacious clouds, and along the
landscape and flowing currents.

23.Here is realization,
Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has
in him,
The animals, the past, the future, light, space,
majesty, love, if they are vacant of you, you
are vacant of them.

24.Only the kernel of every object nourishes;
Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?
Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for
you and me?

25.Here is adhesiveness—it is not previously fashioned
—it is apropos;
Do you know what it is, as you pass, to be loved by
strangers?
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?

26.Here is the efflux of the Soul,
The efflux of the Soul comes through beautiful gates
of laws, provoking questions;
These yearnings, why are they? These thoughts in
the darkness, why are they?
Why are there men and women that while they are
nigh me, the sun-light expands my blood?
Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink
flat and lank?
Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and
melodious thoughts descend upon me?