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 labor
to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have
patience and indulgence toward 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, reexamine 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.