Classic Poem

There was nothing remarkable about the day,
The day was like all other days, a simple day among simple days,
The clouds in the sky were beautiful but they were not more beautiful than I had seen them often before,
The river I crossed was the same river whose tides up and down were the tides of accustomed courses,
I looked into the faces of the people I passed on the street —
The people were the same people I had always known,
The faces were the same faces that had always reflected the despair and faith of my own face:
I lifted the baby out of the crib and fondled it as I had fondled other babies fresh through the gates of birth
What was it that filled me full and flowing over with radiant joy?
The old thoughts came back again in the old forms: it was not the old thoughts.
The old emotions returned and blessed me with the ancient blessings: it was not the old emotions
The woman I loved came to me and touched me with the thrilled and thrilling palms of our first avowal of love: it was not the woman I loved
Failure and success played the usual parts in my shifting fortune: it was not failure and success.
What was it, do you think, that possessed me with such abundant consolation?
I was visited by some added plenty of life:
Something I cannot even speak of to myself that grew up out of all the past yet was not the past
I think that if I tried to tell the meaning of this it would disappear:
It is so remote from words that words would only shock its ineffable silences.
I used to stand awed before men and women, they were so great:
I still stand awed before men and women — they are not less great:
But before this, how do I stand? O God I do not know how I stand!
I am translated into the substance of my father self,
I go and come in great joy but I do not know where I go and come:
I say I know at last what life is but when you ask me what life is I say I cannot tell,
I say I am carried away bodily into other spheres but you remind me that my body is here,
I pass you on the street and you nod to me, but I pass you again and you do not know me nor do I know myself
It is a tremendous mystery to me and must remain a mystery,
I am overcome, swept away, lost in the furious stream
Have you lived and missed the last satisfaction of living?
There was nothing remarkable about the day —
The day came, the day went, quite like other days:
No — there was nothing remarkable about the day:
I guess I see what it was — yes, I see what it was:
There was nothing remarkable about the day,
The day was a duplicate of days gone and of days to be duplicated ever and ever:
This was what it was: there was something remarkable about me:
I say it over a thousand times: there was something remarkable about me.
And you, sisters, brothers, dear to me, O so dear to me —
Is there not also something remarkable about you? remarkable? oh! so very remarkable?
Something that calendars could not include but which you include?
Something that no matter what fails and flies that never fails and flies?
Do you not feel it at times as I feel it at times?
I say to all of you, you are all so dear to me, that there is something very remarkable about you,
That there is nothing very remarkable about the days.