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Leaves of Grass (1867)

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WITH ANTECEDENTS.

¹ WITH antecedents;

With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations
of past ages;

With all which, had it not been, I would not now be
here, as I am:

With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome;

With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the
Saxon;

With antique maritime ventures,—with laws, artizan-
ship, wars and journeys;

With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the
oracle;

With the sale of slaves—with enthusiasts—with the
troubadour, the crusader, and the monk;

With those old continents whence we have come to this
new continent;

With the fading kingdoms and kings over there;

With the fading religions and priests;

With the small shores we look back to from our own
large and present shores;

With countless years drawing themselves onward, and
arrived at these years;

You and Me arrived—America arrived, and making
this year;

This year! sending itself ahead countless years to
come.

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² O but it is not the years—it is I—it is You;

We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents;

We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the
knight—we easily include them, and more;

We stand amid time, beginningless and endless—we
stand amid evil and good;

All swings around us—there is as much darkness as
light;

The very sun swings itself and its system of planets
around us:

Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.

³ As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these ve-
hement days;)

I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all;

I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true—
I reject no part.

⁴ Have I forgotten any part?

Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you
recognition.

⁵ I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the He-
brews;

I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god;

I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are
true, without exception;

I assert that all past days were what they should have
been;

And that they could no-how have been better than
they were,

And that to-day is what it should be—and that
America is,

And that to-day and America could no-how be better
than they are.

⁶ In the name of These States, and in your and my
name, the Past,

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And in the name of These States, and in your and my
name, the Present time.

⁷ I know that the past was great, and the future will
be great,

And I know that both curiously conjoint in the pres-
ent time,

(For the sake of him I typify—for the common aver-
age man's sake—your sake, if you are he;)

And that where I am, or you are, this present day,
there is the centre of all days, all races,

And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever
come of races and days, or ever will come.

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The Walt Whitman Archive

Leaves of Grass (1867)

WITH ANTECEDENTS.