by Whitman · Cluster: Identity · Free Verse · Eternal Return
Abstract
Brief free-verse fragment asserting that the soul’s inner judgments, not outer authorities or traditions, are the true tests of all things.
Connections
Themes & Concepts: Self-Knowledge, Truth, Identity Forms & Genres: Fragment, Free Verse
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: AUTUMN RIVULETS
All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to
analysis in the soul,
Not traditions, not the outer authorities are the judges,
They are the judges of outer authorities and of all traditions,
They corroborate as they go only whatever corroborates themselves,
and touches themselves;
For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far
and near without one exception.