ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all–aplomb in the midst of irrational
things,
Imbued as they–passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less
important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary–all these subordinate,
(I am eternally equal with the best–I am not subordinate
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or
far north, or inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These
States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada,
Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be
self-balanced for
contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as
the trees and animals do.
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