Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak properly a single word?)
Let others finish specimens, I never finish specimens, I start them by exhaustless laws as Nature does, fresh and modern continually.
I give nothing as duties, What others give as duties I give as living impulses, (Shall I give the heart’s action as a duty?)
Let others dispose of questions, I dispose of nothing, I arouse unanswerable questions, Who are they I see and touch, and what about them? What about these likes of myself that draw me so close by tender directions and indirections?
I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but listen to my enemies, as I myself do, I charge you forever reject those who would expound me, for I cannot expound myself, I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me, I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.
After me, vista! O I see life is not short, but immeasurably long, I henceforth tread the world chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower, Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries.
I must follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth, I perceive I have no time to lose.
Year of Meteors
(1859–60)
Year of meteors! brooding year! I would bind in words retrospective some of your deeds and signs, I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad, I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair,