The sum of all known value and respect, I add up in you, whoever you are. - Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done!
The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.

"We consider bibles and religions divine — I do not say they are not divine,
I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still,
It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life,
Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed out of you."

-from "A Song of Occupations"

Among the men and women, the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else — not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,
any nearer than I am;
Some are baffled — But that one is not — that one knows me.

Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.