To Him That Was Crucified
Walt Whitman
MY spirit to yours, dear brother;
Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you;
I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others
also;)
I specify you with joy, O my comrade, to salute you, and to salute
those who are with you, before and since--and those to come
also,
That we all labor together, transmitting the same charge and
succession;
We few, equals, indifferent of lands, indifferent of times;
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes--allowers of all
theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the
disputers, nor any thing that is asserted;
We hear the bawling and din--we are reach'd at by divisions,
jealousies, recriminations on every side, 10
They close peremptorily upon us, to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and
down, till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the
diverse eras,
Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages
to come, may prove brethren and lovers, as we are.
