1.1. Song of the Answerer
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Now list to my morning's romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer,
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To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me.
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A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother,
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How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother?
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Tell him to send me the signs. And I stand before the young man
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face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand and his
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left hand in my right hand,
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And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him that
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answers for all, and send these signs.
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Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and final,
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Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light,
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Him they immerse and he immerses them.
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Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape,
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The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, (so
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tell I my morning's romanza,)
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All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever money will buy,
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The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably reaps,
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The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building and he
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Nothing for any one but what is for him, near and far are for him,
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the ships in the offing,
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The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for anybody.
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He puts things in their attitudes,
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He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love,
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He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and
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sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest
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never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.
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What can be answer'd he answers, and what cannot be answer'd he
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shows how it cannot be answer'd.
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A man is a summons and challenge,
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(It is vain to skulk—do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you
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hear the ironical echoes?)
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Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride,
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beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction,
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He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and
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Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly
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and gently and safely by day or by night,
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He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of
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His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or
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The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.
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Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue,
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He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and
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any man translates, and any man translates himself also,
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One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees
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He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President
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And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field,
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And both understand him and know that his speech is right.
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He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,
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He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another,
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Here is our equal appearing and new.
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Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
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And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that
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he has follow'd the sea,
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And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,
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And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them,
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No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it or has
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No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and
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The English believe he comes of their English stock,
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A Jew to the Jew he seems, a Russ to the Russ, usual and near,
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Whoever he looks at in the traveler's coffee-house claims him,
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The Italian or Frenchman is sure, the German is sure, the Spaniard
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is sure, and the island Cuban is sure,
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The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi
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or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or Paumanok sound, claims him.
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The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood,
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The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see
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themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes them,
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They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they are so grown.
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The indications and tally of time,
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Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs,
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Time, always without break, indicates itself in parts,
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What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant company
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of singers, and their words,
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The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark,
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but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark,
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The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,
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His insight and power encircle things and the human race,
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He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the human race.
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The singers do not beget, only the Poet begets,
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The singers are welcom'd, understood, appear often enough, but rare
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has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker
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of poems, the Answerer,
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(Not every century nor every five centuries has contain'd such a
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day, for all its names.)
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The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible
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names, but the name of each of them is one of the singers,
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The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer,
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sweet-singer, night-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer,
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weird-singer, or something else.
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All this time and at all times wait the words of true poems,
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The words of true poems do not merely please,
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The true poets are not followers of beauty but the august masters of beauty;
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The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers
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The words of true poems are the tuft and final applause of science.
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Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health,
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rudeness of body, withdrawnness,
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Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness, such are some of the words of poems.
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The sailor and traveler underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer,
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The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist, all
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these underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer.
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The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
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They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war,
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peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing else,
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They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
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They do not seek beauty, they are sought,
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Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing,
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They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,
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They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,
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Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to
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learn one of the meanings,
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To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless
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rings and never be quiet again.
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