Walt Whitman

Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse

We willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.

And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,
For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul and
of immortality.

And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and
can be none in the future,
And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to
beautiful results,
And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death,
And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are
compact,
And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each
as profound as any.

Was somebody asking to see the soul?
See, your own shape and countenance, persons, substances, beasts,
the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.

Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern and
includes and is the soul;
Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body, or any part
of it!

Daughter of the lands did you wait for your poet?

And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit
in which they are won.