"Oh Whitman, my Whitman"

Whitman and I are often at odds, especially since I'm in the midst of writing a 20 page seminar paper about ecocriticism and nature writing in Leaves of Grass... BUT when I put down all the critical BS, and pick up the text itself, I sometimes find something that really moves me. This is what I found today:

“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 man, 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 riches 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.”