Great Are the Myths
1 GREAT are the myths—I too delight in them;
Great are Adam and Eve—I too look back and accept
them;
Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets,
women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, and
priests.
2 Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their
follower;
Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you
sail, I sail,
I weather it out with you, or sink with you.
3 Great is Youth—equally great is Old Age—great
are the Day and night;
Great is Wealth—great is Poverty—great is Expres–
sion—great is Silence.
4 Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace,
force, fascination!
Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with
equal grace, force, fascination?
5 Day, full-blown and splendid—Day of the immense
sun, action, ambition, laughter,
The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and
sleep, and restoring darkness.
6 Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospi–
tality;
But then the Soul’s wealth, which is candor, knowl–
edge, pride, enfolding love;
(Who goes for men and women showing Poverty
richer than wealth?)
7 (Expression of speech! in what is written or said,
forget not that Silence is also expressive,
That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt as
cold as the coldest, may be without words.)
8 Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it
is;
Do you imagine it has stopt at this? the increase
abandon’d?
Understand then that it goes as far onward from this,
as this is from the times when it lay in cover–
ing waters and gases, before man had appear’d.
9 Great is the quality of Truth in man;
The quality of truth in man supports itself through
all changes,
It is inevitably in the man—he and it are in love, and
never leave each other.
10 The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eye–
sight;
If there be any Soul, there is truth—if there be man
or woman, there is truth—if there be physical
or moral, there is truth;
If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth—if
there be things at all upon the earth, there is
truth.
11 O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am de–
termin’d to press my way toward you;
Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the
sea after you.
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12 Great is Language—it is the mightiest of the sci–
ences,
It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the earth,
and of men and women, and of all qualities
and processes;
It is greater than wealth—it is greater than buildings,
ships, religions, paintings, music.
13 Great is the English speech—what speech is so
great as the English?
Great is the English brood—what brood has so vast a
destiny as the English?
It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth
with the new rule;
The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the
love, justice, equality in the Soul rule.
14 Great is law—great are the old few land-marks of
the law,
They are the same in all times, and shall not be dis–
turb’d.
15 Great is Justice!
Justice is not settled by legislators and laws—it is in
the Soul;
It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love,
pride, the attraction of gravity, can;
It is immutable—it does not depend on majorities—
majorities or what not, come at last before the
same passionless and exact tribunal.
16 For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and per–
fect judges—is it in their Souls;
It is well assorted—they have not studied for nothing
—the great includes the less;
They rule on the highest grounds—they oversee all
eras, states, administrations.
17 The perfect judge fears nothing—he could go front
to front before God;
Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—life and
death shall stand back—heaven and hell shall
stand back.
18 Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and who–
ever;
Great is Death—sure as life holds all parts together,
Death holds all parts together.
19 Has Life much purport?—Ah, Death has the greatest
purport.
Leaves of Grass
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