Allons! to that which is endless as it was
   beginningless,
 To undergo much, tramps for days, rests of
   nights,
 To merge all in the travel they tend to, and
   the days and nights they tend to,
 Again to merge them in the start of superior
   journeys,
 To see nothing anywhere but what you may
   reach it and pass it,
 To conceive no time, however distant, but
   what you may reach it and pass it,
 To look up or down no road but it stretches
   and waits for you, however long but it
   stretches and waits for you,
 To see no being, not God's or any, but you
   also go thither,
 To see no possession but you may possess it,
   enjoying all without labor or purchase,
   abstracting the feast yet no abstracting
   one particle of it,
 To take the best of the farmer's farm and the
   rich man's elegant villa, and the chaste 
   blessings of the well-married couple, and
   the fruits of orchards and flowers of
   gardens,
 To take to your use out of the compact
   cities as you pass through,
 To carry buildings and streets with you
   afterward wherever you go,
 To gather the minds of men out of their
   brains as you encounter them, to gather
   the love out of their hearts,
 To take your lovers on the road with you,
   for all that you leave them behind you,
 To know the universe itself as a road, as
   many roads, as roads for traveling souls.

All parts away for the progress of souls,
 All religion, all solid things, arts,
   governments -- all that was or is apparent
   upon this globe or any globe, falls into
   niches and corners before the procession
   of souls along the grand roads of the 
   universe.

Of the progress of the souls of men and
   women along the grand roads of the 
   universe, all other progress is the needed
   emblem and sustenance.

Forever alive, forever forward,
 Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled,
   mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied,
 Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by
   men, rejected by men,
 They go! they go! I know that they go, but I
   know not where they go,
 But I know that they go toward the best --
   toward something great.

Whoever you are, come forth! or man or
   woman come forth!
 You must not stay sleeping and dallying
   there in the house, though you built it, or
   though it has been built for you.

Out of the dark confinement! out from
   behind the screen!
 It is useless to protest, I know all and expose
   it. 

Behold through you as bad as the rest,
 Through the laughter, dancing, dining,
   supping, of people,
 Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of
   those wash'd and trimm'd faces,
 Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.

No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to
   hear the confession,
 Another self, a duplicate of every one,
   skulking and hiding it goes,
 Formless and wordless through the streets of
   the cities, polite and bland in the parlors,
 In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the 
   public assembly,
 Home to the houses of men and women, at
   the table, in the bedroom, everywhere,
 Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form
   upright, death under the breast-bones,
   hell under the skull-bones,
 Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the
   ribbons and artificial flowers,
 Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not
   a syllable of itself,
 Speaking of any thing else but never of
   itself.