Respondez!

RESPONDEZ! Respondez!
   (The war is completed--the price is paid--the title is settled beyond
         recall;)
   Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
   Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
   Let me bring this to a close--I pronounce openly for a new
         distribution of roles;
   Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was
         behind advance to the front and speak;
   Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new
         propositions!
   Let the old propositions be postponed!
   Let faces and theories be turn'd inside out! let meanings be freely
         criminal, as well as results!
   Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery! 10
   Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your
         destination?)
   Let men and women be mock'd with bodies and mock'd with Souls!
   Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass stillborn
         to other spheres!
   Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass,
         a dwarf, to other spheres!
   Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict another! and let
         one line of my poems contradict another!
   Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their tongues
         be broken! let their eyes be discouraged! let none descend into
         their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love!
   (Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private corruption!
   Smother'd in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountain-high;
   Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean's waves around and
         upon you, O my days! my lands!
   For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the war,
         have purified the atmosphere;)                               20
   --Let the theory of America still be management, caste, comparison!
         (Say! what other theory would you?)
   Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say! why
         shall they not lead you?)
   Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be darker
         than the nights! let slumber bring less slumber than waking
         time brings!
   Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all made!
   Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart of
         the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from
         that of the young man!
   Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause of the
         audience! let there be apathy under the stars!
   Let freedom prove no man's inalienable right! every one who can
         tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his satisfaction!
   Let none but infidels be countenanced!
   Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate, greed,
         indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for granted above all! let
         writers, judges, governments, households, religions,
         philosophies, take such for granted above all!
   Let the worst men beget children out of the worst women!           30
   Let the priest still play at immortality!
   Let death be inaugurated!
   Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists,
         lawyers, and learn'd and polite persons!
   Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!
   Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee--let the mudfish,
         the lobster, the mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting
         pig-fish--let these, and the like of these, be put on a perfect
         equality with man and woman!
   Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those
         who have died of the most filthy of diseases!
   Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but fools!
   Let men among themselves talk and think forever obscenely of women!
         and let women among themselves talk and think obscenely of men!
   Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked,
         monthly, at the peril of our lives! let our bodies be freely
         handled and examined by whoever chooses!
   Let nothing but copies at second hand be permitted to exist upon the
         earth!                                                       40
   Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be mention'd
         the name of God!
   Let there be no God!
   Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom, authority,
         precedents, pallor, dyspepsia, smut, ignorance, unbelief!
   Let judges and criminals be transposed! let the prison-keepers be put
         in prison!