comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain. If the greatnesses are in
conjunction in a man or woman, it is enough--the fact will prevail through
the universe: but the gaggery and gilt of a million years will not prevail.
Who troubles himself about his ornaments or fluency is lost. This is what
you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give
alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your
income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have
patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing
known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful
uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families,
read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life,
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. The poet shall not spend his time
in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready ploughed
and manured: others may not know it, but he shall. He shall go directly to
the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches,
and shall master all attachment.

The known universe has one complete lover, and that is the greatest poet.
He consumes an eternal passion, and is indifferent which chance happens,
and which possible contingency of fortune or misfortune, and persuades
daily and hourly his delicious pay. What balks or breaks others is fuel for
his burning progress to contact and amorous joy. Other proportions of the
reception of pleasure dwindle to nothing to his proportions. All expected
from heaven or from the highest he is rapport with in the sight of the
daybreak, or a scene of the winter woods, or the presence of children
playing, or with his arm round the neck of a man or woman. His love, above