Classic Poem

I love to go among my dear comrades the people,
Loafing in streets with my spirit alert and approving,
Not afraid to admit the bad with the good or losing faith when evil brags and blasphemes,
Giving my whole self for the whole self of the crowd,
Withholding nothing from the free interchange of the hours,
Liberal with life as the crowd is liberal with life,
In the sacred stream without question of precedence commingling.
You, dear comrades — you, the people: the common gang:
You draw me out — you go to my roots and get your pay:
I am not ashamed of you or proud of you: you are my comrades: I can say no more.
You halt and you go on — you swear and riot and corrupt:
You take your fill of all folly and turn it to the uses of love:
Yet you are not understood — the gloved hand does not understand you:
Yet you are not understood — the cultive does not understand you:
They think you are ugly and dirty: they doubt you, men and women:
I go with you hand in hand, I do not question the way:
Their clubs disappear, their libraries disappear — you alone figure in the autumn's grain:
For my love of you goes below and above all explanations of love:
Goes to sacrifice, goes to service, which forever glorify you.

The mad sea tosses — the sea of my comrades:
And we call our hellos to each other from the crests of waves,
And the streets teem with the millions of us no better or worse,
And the houses, the silent houses each side, regard us with their dumb looks,
And we give the great city its life or it has no life —
Yes, give it its justifying meaning or it has no meaning:
Lift it all upon our shoulders to mountainous wonder,
And suffer and die to keep it aloft as a banner signaling the farther dreams.

Dear comrades, dear people, I pass unnoticed among you as I should,
And though you do not know it you all gather about me and I gather about you,
And our tears flow together in one sorrow,
And our laughters ripple together in one jubilant outcry,
And food is given for food in the labor of the general arm,
And when you are sick we are partners ill in one bed,
And when you die we are mates buried in one coffin:
Poured one into another as into vessels of mutual measure,
Not eager to be picked out for special applause,
You to separate yourself from me or I to separate myself from you —
Only contented to be seized and carried along in the master current,
No one preferred for eminence but the total itself so eminent.
In the highways of the town, in the seething rush and tumble of the night,
As I stray out from my house and lose myself in the intimacy of your flood,
I the singer am merged in the beautiful song.

I try to say things but they dont get said:
Only the hints of things get said — and they must suffice:
And when I try to make love to the people they do not hear —
They miss my true voice in the babel of betraying voices:
Yet I do not curse and weep and forswear my cause:
I know that about my dear comrades which they do not know about themselves,
And though their doors are locked I can get in without keys,
And though they miss my secret they cannot miss my forth-reaching love.

The streets are full of people, the people are full of me:
I see the artists help themselves to the treasure of the people and they do not know I am watching,
And they put it into books and pictures and music and call it by another name and forget the soil that gave the harvest,
And call the sun by another name and the rain:
But the people are steadfast — they bequeath the great fortunes,
And in their faces which I look into this night, in their unswerving faces,
Is the plea and promise of sustenance everlasting, of eternal fertility,
Shining more clearly than the stars in the sky above,
Auguring the noblest fulfilments of the soul:
I love to go among my dear comrades the people!