Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Unabridged and Complete Edition (A Walt Whitman Classics)

by Walt Whitman

I do not despise you priests; My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, Enclosing all worship ancient and modern, and all between ancient and modern, Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years, Waiting responses from oracles . . . . honoring the gods . . . . saluting the sun, Making a fetish of the first rock or stump . . . . powowing with sticks in the circle of obis, Helping the lama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols, Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession . . . . rapt and austere in the woods, a gymnosophist, Drinking mead from the skull-cup . . . . to shasta and vedas admirant . . . . minding the koran, Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife—beating the serpent-skin drum; Accepting the gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine, To the mass kneeling—to the puritan’s prayer rising—sitting patiently in a pew, Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis—waiting dead-like till my spirit arouses me; Looking forth on pavement and land, and outside of pavement and land, Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits. One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang, I turn and talk like a man leaving charges before a journey. Down-hearted doubters, dull and excluded, Frivolous sullen moping angry affected disheartened atheistical, I know every one of you, and know the unspoken interrogatories, By experience I know them.