Who is now reading this?

May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life,
Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me,
Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision,
Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.

As if I were not puzzled at myself!
Or as if I never deride myself! (O conscience-struck! O self-convicted!)
Or as if I do not secretly love strangers! (O tenderly, a long time, and never avow it;)
Or as if I did not see, perfectly well, interior in myself, the stuff of wrong-doing,
Or as if it could cease transpiring from me until it must cease.

Your cards are something that I desperately would like to fix
But my fingers are terribly stupid with those witty kinds of tricks

If I could, I would move the conceited constellations by degrees
After re-tossing all your bewitched leaves from your stupid teas

And I don’t know whether God just weighted your dice for kicks
But I wish I could be an ill sport and pick for you a face of any six

Because, although I can only see nonsense when you grin about your Belief,
It has moulded you into something perfect
and you deserve all there is of any relief.

A big, dark creature is the velvet landscape,
Perforated, so that tiny origins of luminescence
Freckle the breathing mountain’s gently sloped nape
And validates the distant city’s inner flamboyance.

The spine of wet tar, peppered with lustre,
Arcs the creature’s hunch of a back -
It summons me to the city’s sordid muster
To wean me of myself and to render its flak.

Instead, I think I’ll stay on the footed side of the nameless beast
Where I can soak in my tatters and be but my own, homeless priest.

Had I the choice to tally greatest bards,
To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will,
Homer with all his wars and warriors—Hector, Achilles, Ajax,
Or Shakespeare’s woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear, Othello—Tennyson’s
        fair ladies,
Meter or wit the best, or choice conceit to wield in perfect rhyme,
        delight of singers;
These, these, O sea, all these I’d gladly barter,
Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer,
Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,
And leave its odor there.

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
    oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
    themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
    neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer
    of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
    hid—I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and
    prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who
    shall be ****’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
    laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out
    upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

Be composed—be at ease with me—I am Walt Whitman, liberal and ***** as Nature;
Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you;
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and the leaves to rustle for you,
do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.

My girl, I appoint with you an appointment—and I charge you that you make
preparation to be worthy to meet me,
And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.

Till then, I salute you with a significant look, that you do not forget me.