A man is a summons and challenge, (It is vain to skulk—do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you hear the ironical echoes?)
Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction, He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also.
Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely by day or by night, He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs.
His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is, The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.
Every existence has its idiom, everything has an idiom and tongue, He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and any man translates himself also, One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees how they join.
He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President at his levee, And he says Good day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field, And both understand him and know that his speech is right.
He walks with perfect ease in the capitol, He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another, Here is our equal appearing and new.
Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow’d the sea, And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist, And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them, No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it or has follow’d it, No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there.