Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable and untouching, It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or no, I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.
Grown, half-grown and babe, of this country and every country, in-doors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see, And all else behind or through them.
The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband, The daughter, and she is just as good as the son, The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father.
Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades, Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms, Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants, All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see, None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me.