Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass:
"Give me the splendid silent sun, give me the Earth . . .

Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy,
Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the Present only, the past is also stored in thee,
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the Western [ Hesperian ] continent alone, Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel O [ sacred ] ship, is steadied by thy spars. With thee TIME voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or swim with THEE, With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, THOU bear'st the other continents, . . . Steer then with good strong hand and wary EYE O helmsman, THOU carriest great companions, Venerable priestly Asia sails this day with THEE, And royal feudal Europe sails with THEE.

Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my eyes,
Like a limitless golden cloud filling the western [ Hesperian ] sky, . . .
How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?
I feel thy ominous greatness evil as well as good, I watch THEE advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past,
I see thy light lighting, and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe,
How do I undertake to define THEE, hardly to comprehend THEE? . . .

Haply God's riddle for it, so vague and yet so certain,
The soul for it, and all the visible Universe for it,
And heaven at last for it! . . .
Be not disheartened, keep on, there are DIVINE things, well enveloped, I swear it! Divine things more beautiful than words can tell.
SAIL ON O SHIP OF DEMOCRACY! Be not disheartened.
Compassion shall solve the problems of FREEDOM yet.
Those who love one another shall yet be victorious,
Sons of the Mother of ALL, you shall yet be victorious, you shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of the remainder of the Earth.

Long, too long, America,
Travelling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not!, And now to conceive and . S H O W . T H E . W O R L D . what your children en-masse really are!"
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again! . . . they endure! Then THOU dearest child mournest not alone . . . Considerest THOU one amongst the stars, child of the Universe, no less than the trees and suns!*

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walk of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt under your hands and feet,
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me now,
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, NOW I PLACE MY HAND UPON YOU,
that YOU shall be my poem. [ MASONRY PLACES ITS HAND UPON YOU THAT YOU MAY BE A DIVINE POEM! ]*
Oh, I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way to you long ago
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but YOU.

I will leave ALL and sing the hymns of YOU,
None has understood you, but I understand you.
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I alone am he who find no imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I alone am he who will NEVER consent to subordinate you.
I alone am he who places over you no owner, master, better, God, beyond that which waits intrinsically within yourself. . .
Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all,
From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color'd light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color'd light, . . .

Whoever you are, the divine ship sails the divine see for THEE!
Whoever you are! You are he or she for whom the earth is solid, and liquid,
You are he or she for whom the sun and the moon hang in the sky,
For none more than YOU are the present and the past,
For none more than YOU is immortality . . .
The Earth does not withhold; it is generous enough
The truths of the Earth, the Universe continually wait, they are not so conceal'd either,
They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print,
Air, soil, water, fire, those are words,
I myself am a word with them - my qualities interpenetrate with theirs . . .
The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth . . .

You gray stones of interminable pavements, you trodden paths,
From all that have touched you I believe you have imparted to yourselves,
And now would impart the same secretly to me,

This hour brethren, I ordain myself loosed of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, captain of my ship
Listening to others, considering well what they have to say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me,
I inhale great drafts of space, the north and the south, the east and the west are mine,
I am larger, better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness, I did not know YOU held such goodness,

All seems beautiful to me, I can repeat over to men and women,
You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me, it shall NOT trouble me,
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.

Now, brethren, I see the secret of the making of the best of people,
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth,
Here a great personal deed has room to grow,
(Such a deed seizes upon the HEARTS of a whole race of men and women as they go)
Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority and all argument against it,

HERE IS THE TEST OF WISDOM!
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
Wisdom cannot be passed from one having it to another not having it.
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,
It is the certainty of the reality and the immortality, and the excellence of things,
Now I re-examine philosophies and religions,
They may prove well in lecture rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds,
and along the landscapes and flowing currents.

HERE IS REALIZATION, HERE IS HUMANKIND TALLIED.
We realize here what we have within us,
THE PAST, THE FUTURE, MAJESTY, LOVE.

The efflux of the soul IS HAPPINESS
I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times,
NOW, it flows unto us, we are rightly charged. . . .
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things, well enveloped, I swear it!
Divine things MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN WORDS CAN TELL

This is America, [ Western or Hesperian land ],
Journeyers, with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,
Old age, calm, expanded, with the broad and the haughty breadth of the UNIVERSE,
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near freedom of death,
Allons, to that which is endless as it is beginningless,
To see nothing, brethren, anywhere, but that you may reach it and pass it,
To conceive of no time, however distant, but that you may reach it and pass it.
To look up and down a road, but that it stretches and waits for YOU.
To see no being, not God's, nor any, but that you go thither, . . .
To gather the minds of men and women out of their brains, as you encounter them,
To gather the love out of their hearts,

To know life as a road, as many roads, To know the Universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for travelling souls,
ALL PARTS WAY FOR THE PROGRESS OF SOULS,
All religion, all solid things, arts, governments,
all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe,
parts way for the progress of souls along the GRAND ROADS OF THE UNIVERSE,
Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the Grand Roads of the Universe,
All other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance,

Forever alive, forever forward, stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied, desperate, proud, fond, sick, ACCEPTED BY MEN, REJECTED BY MEN, THEY GO, THEY GO! I know not where they go, but I know they go towards the best, TOWARDS SOMETHING GREAT!

Whoever you are now, come forth!
Or man or woman, come forth! Come forth from the dark confinement!
Take my yoke upon you, the road and the burden are easy, I have tried it! * . . .
Come forth . . . for we shall sail wild and pathless seas, where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee Clipper sails by at full speed!

I am with you, you men and women of a generation or ever so many generations hence . . .
I thought of you long and hard, before you were born,
Just as you were one among a crowd, I too was one of a living crowd,
Just as you feel when you look upon the lake and the sky, so too I felt,
Just as you were refreshed by the gladness of the lake and the sky, so too was I,
I too many a time crossed the lake of old, watched the seagulls high in the air, oscillating their bodies,
Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the waters,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering tracks of beams,
Looked at the fine centrifugal spokes round the shape of my head in the sunlit waters,

What is then between us? What is the count of the scores or the hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not, time nor place, distance avails not!
Closer yet I approach you. What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you,
I laid in my stores in advance - I considered long and seriously of you before you were born!

Thrive, cities - bring your freight, your shows, your ample and sufficient rivers and roads! . .
We fathom you not but we love you, there is perfection in you also,
You furnish your parts towards Eternity, great or small, you furnish your parts towards the soul."

We should speak to one another more often in the language of music and kindness: Possible Google and You Tube references: 'Bach Under The Stars: Air on the G String' + 'Brandenburg Concerto Nr. 4, third movement, presto' + 'Bach Brandenburg Concerto 2, 1.movement' + Beethoven's 9th Symphony, 4th Movement, Ode An Die Freude + Bach Double (Concerto for Two Violins in D minor) + Jennifer Larmore : "Haendel's "Ombra mai fu" (Never was the shade of a plant [ or of human compassion ] more soothing or lovable) + Brahms Requiem - Mvt. 2, part 1 ( For all flesh is like the grass, soon to wither. And all the glorious works of men are like the bloom of the flower, soon to fall down ) + Dvorak - 9th Symphony 2nd Movement - Largo + Eric Clapton/Tears in heaven + Red Hot Chili Peppers "Snow (Hey O)" live at Fuse + The Beatles - Across The Universe (Anthology version) + Scott Mckenzie - San Francisco (1967) + elton john - candle in the wind - Sep 2006 + Coven - One Tin Soldier + Chicago- Take Me Back To Chicago - and 'Searchin' - 1977 + The Bangles - Eternal Flame 2001 + Pavarotti Last Performance "Nessun Dorma" - Torino 2006 ( watch the stars, that tremble with love and with hope ) + MASON WILLIAMS CLASSICAL GAS + A Matter Of Trust - Billy Joel - video NYC street + Scorpions Wind of Change Live Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra - 2001 + James Taylor - Shower the People (Beacon Theatre 1998) + Louis Armstrong - What a wounderful world + Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any wonder like unto these wonders. Behold, all ye people of this earth, to see if there be any wonders like unto these.

Walt Whitman's, Leaves of Grass - See also, a 21st century symphonic interpretation