Music by The Refusers

Friday, January 20, 2012

Mediums - A Poem by Walt Whitman


Mediums


THEY shall arise in the States,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness;
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive;
They shall be complete women and men—their pose brawny and supple, their drink water, their blood clean and clear;
They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products—they shall enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago, the great city;
They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and oratresses;
Strong and sweet shall their tongues be—poems and materials of poems shall come from their lives—they shall be makers and finders;
Of them, and of their works, shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey gospels;
Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey’d in gospels
—Trees, animals, waters, shall be convey’d,
Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey’d.

Walt Whitman





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