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"Lines from 'A Song for Occupations'" by Walt Whitman, composed by Otto Luening

 

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The sum of all known reverence I add up in you whoever you are,

The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who
      are here for him,

The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them,

The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you,

Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the
      going and coming of commerce and malls, are all for you.

List close my scholars dear, (List close my scholars dear)

Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you,

Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you,

The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records

      reach is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same,

If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be?

The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays would

      be vacuums.

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it,

(Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of
      the arches and cornices?)

All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments,

It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the
      beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his
      sweet romanza, nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of the
      women's chorus,

It is nearer and farther than they.

 

Will the whole come back then?
Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? is
      there nothing greater or more?
Does all sit there with you, with the mystic unseen soul?

Strange and hard that paradox true I give,
Objects gross and the unseen soul are one.