Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd / And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, / I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.

Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.

My words itch at your ears till you understand them

O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself.

That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world.