To get the final lilt of songs,
To penetrate the inmost lore of poets—to know the mighty ones,
Job, Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Emerson;
To diagnose the shifting-delicate tints of love and pride and doubt—to truly understand,
To encompass these, the last keen faculty and entrance-price,
Old age, and what it brings from all its past experiences.
Public-domain source text
To Get the Final Lilt of Songs
by Walt Whitman
From Standard Ebooks · standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass
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