Out from Behind This Mask

Out from behind this bending rough-cut mask,

These lights and shades, this drama of the whole,

This common curtain of the face contain'd in me for me, in you for you, in each for each,

( Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears — heaven!

The passionate teeming plays this curtain hid! )

This glaze of God's serenest purest sky,

This film of Satan's seething pit,

This heart's geography's map, this limitless small continent, this soundless sea;

Out from the convolutions of this globe,

This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon, than Jupiter, Venus, Mars,

This condensation of the universe, ( nay here the only universe,

Here the idea, all in this mystic handful wrapt;)

These burin'd eyes, flashing to you to pass to future time,

To launch and spin through space revolving sideling, from these to emanate,

To you whoe'er you are — a look.

A traveler of thoughts and years, of peace and war,

Of youth long sped and middle age declining,

( As the first volume of a tale perused and laid away, and this the second,

Songs, ventures, speculations, presently to close,)

Lingering a moment here and now, to you I opposite turn,

As on the road or at some crevice door by chance, or open'd window,

Pausing, inclining, baring my head, you specially I greet,

To draw and clinch your soul for once inseparably with mine,

Then travel travel on.