What Have I to do with Lives
What have I to do with lives outside of my life?
Why should my fortune concern itself about the fortunes of the unlucky?
Why should I be distressed when things go wrong in the world as long as things go all right in my own house?
Why should I care who has too little as long as I have enough?
I call for life, flush and proud, on my own account, ever, ever and forever!
Yet life may be poor and unkept,
For life will not come on my own account,
For life on my own account is empty and forbidden,
And all the orderliness of my house is ciphered in the general confusion,
And nothing can be right with me if anything is wrong with the world,
For the world goes about declaring my name and I can only repeat its cry in the syllables of justice.
How could you pass me unseen, O brother spirit?
You travel in disguises, you travel in crime and virtue,
But we arrive together at the same spot—no one comes in before another.
Could I ever know man if any man was less or other than another me?
Could I reach to the farthest life or reach to the nearest if far and near mattered in the least?
Could I ascend to Christ or the masters or descend to the obscure or the slaves if high or low counted in the scale?
Could I know my own face if yours was alien to me, or anything back of either face?
You believe that your next of kin is the man or woman you love,
You believe that your next of kin is the man or woman who believes in you or in whom you believe,
You believe that your next of kin is the good and the true.
I take the curtain away: I will not allow you longer to be deceived.
Your next of kin may be the man or woman you hate,
Your next of kin may be the man or woman you doubt and who doubts you,
Your next of kin may be the infamous and the false:
For if these are not your next of kin then you are friendless and homeless on the crowded earth.
For each of your kinsmen is paying a debt:
He may be paying a debt in his good or his bad—he is paying a debt:
And your kinsman's debts are yours: his expiations are for your crimes and misdemeanors,
And if your kinsman is paying debts of evil which are yours as well as his and you disown him,
You are disinheriting your own soul, you are soiling your own body, you are traitorous to all your collateral selves,
Bleeding all life away in starry wastes.
Why should my fortune concern itself about the fortunes of the unlucky?
Why should I be distressed when things go wrong in the world as long as things go all right in my own house?
Why should I care who has too little as long as I have enough?
I call for life, flush and proud, on my own account, ever, ever and forever!
Yet life may be poor and unkept,
For life will not come on my own account,
For life on my own account is empty and forbidden,
And all the orderliness of my house is ciphered in the general confusion,
And nothing can be right with me if anything is wrong with the world,
For the world goes about declaring my name and I can only repeat its cry in the syllables of justice.
How could you pass me unseen, O brother spirit?
You travel in disguises, you travel in crime and virtue,
But we arrive together at the same spot—no one comes in before another.
Could I ever know man if any man was less or other than another me?
Could I reach to the farthest life or reach to the nearest if far and near mattered in the least?
Could I ascend to Christ or the masters or descend to the obscure or the slaves if high or low counted in the scale?
Could I know my own face if yours was alien to me, or anything back of either face?
You believe that your next of kin is the man or woman you love,
You believe that your next of kin is the man or woman who believes in you or in whom you believe,
You believe that your next of kin is the good and the true.
I take the curtain away: I will not allow you longer to be deceived.
Your next of kin may be the man or woman you hate,
Your next of kin may be the man or woman you doubt and who doubts you,
Your next of kin may be the infamous and the false:
For if these are not your next of kin then you are friendless and homeless on the crowded earth.
For each of your kinsmen is paying a debt:
He may be paying a debt in his good or his bad—he is paying a debt:
And your kinsman's debts are yours: his expiations are for your crimes and misdemeanors,
And if your kinsman is paying debts of evil which are yours as well as his and you disown him,
You are disinheriting your own soul, you are soiling your own body, you are traitorous to all your collateral selves,
Bleeding all life away in starry wastes.
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