To Him That Was Crucified

by Walt Whitman · 1871
Published 01/07/1871

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 reached at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side,

They close peremptorily upon us, to surround us, my comrade,

Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, jour-neyingjourneying up and down, till we make our inefface-ableineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras,

Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and wo-menwomen of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers, as we are.

#humanism #solidarity #transcendence #walt whitman

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