Classic Poem

All ways lead to my heart:
Out of confusions and rebellions, out of venoms and revolts, lead to my heart:
Though they come in the darkness in acts of crime, lead to my heart:
Though they are wayward and would prefer to go somewhere else, somehow lead to my heart:
By some mysterious impetus back of what they will to do or not to do, lead to my heart:
All things and all people, clean or corrupt, divine or devilish, lead to my heart:
Sometimes eager, sometimes dreaming of me and of the voyage, lead to my heart:
Haters and lovers, the wronged and the wrongdoers, winners and losers, lead to my heart:
Lead to my heart: come chanting praises or venting curses: lead to my heart:
Those who understand and those who do not understand, the philosopher and the fool, lead to my heart:
Lead to my heart humbling it: lead to my heart making it proud:
Lead to my heart, opening its last door, provoking it to the last hospitality:
Lead to my heart: all ways: ways of question and ways of answer: lead to my heart:
Oh! lead to my heart: shaking the last arrogant superiority off its throne.

You girl of the street—where are you going?
The world condemns you: makes you what you are—then condemns you:
But you: you dont condemn yourself: therefore you are not condemned: there is still a way out:
Yes, there is still a way out: a true way out of a false relation: and you will take it:
I know you will take it—for the true way is the way to me: the way to my heart.
You girl whom I love, whom I meet and make most of—you whom the others make least of:
You girl of the street, you girl of my heart—where are you going?
You are going the way of your regrets: that is the way to me:
You are going the ways of your pain and tears: they are the ways to me:
You may slip down but you cant slip away from me: I will be at the bottom to break your fall.
You girl of the street, you girl of my farthest love: hear what I tell you: take my word for it: I am not deceiving you:
All ways lead to my heart: even the puzzled shambled ways of unbridled desire lead to my heart.
Where are you going? you are going somewhere: do you ask yourself where you are going?
You are going where I go—you are going nowhere else: there is no other place:
We either go to the same place together or we go nowhere at all.
You girl of the street, you from whom those who use you shrink in scorn:
You from whom I dont shrink, whom I dont scorn, though I dont mean to use you:
You girl of the street, you are going somewhere: yes: and I will tell you where you are going:
You are going straight to me: in shame or praise whichever—you are going straight to me:
You have no choice—you cant go the way of disaster and death: there is no such way:
No: you girl of the street—you, loved most of my much love: you will go the way of renewal and life: that is the only way there is:
You: you girl of the street: you will go the way the rest go or no one will go anywhere:
To leave you behind in the gutter would be to leave the whole scheme behind in the gutter—gods, men and worlds:
But you will not be left behind: you: you will go the way to me: all ways lead to my heart

And do you think, you girl of the street, that because I single you out and specify you I mean to insult you?
No, it's not that: I mean to glorify you: I mean to show that you who most die for us must most live for us in the end.
I might have selected any one not you—any other of the children of men and women—and tallied the lesson in him, in her: any other:
But I chose you—I thought to lift you out of the crowd and identify the others through you:
Through you, dear girl of the street, whose disgrace is our disgrace no less:
Through you, dear girl of the street, who carry the soul widest and deepest towards the revelation it must acknowledge:
Through you, dear girl of the street, my sister, my comrade, my lover, whose unsoiled kiss wipes away the ignominy of the world.

I would feel sorry for myself if all ways did not lead to my heart:
I would feel sorry—it would seem to me as if I had mournfully failed if I stood aloof any where from any one or any thing:
If I was detached, an atom apart, having aspirations and affections secluded, I would be like a man dead:
For the living live everywhere and live all over—in body and spirit live:
For the living love everywhere and love all over—in body and spirit love:
And so I am inevitably ahead of you at the end of whatever journey waiting for you with open arms:
Even if you come wrong, even if you come defiled, even if you come the worse off for human wear—waiting for you with open arms
I want you to know it, I want you to bank on it: that you can do nothing to separate yourself from my love: nothing:
I want you to understand that whoever gets tired of waiting I never get tired—that I remain patiently smiling upon all postponements:
The ways are all always open—the doors are taken down: the ways all lead to me:
I gather all your villainies together: you bring them to me: all your mistakes, all your vices:
I gather all that you bring together and throw it away—and I keep you:
O darlings, contrary as you may have been—O darlings, jealous, viperous as you have been—I keep you!
The horrors that you trail along with you—the filth, the corruption, the despair: I take all that and throw it away—and I keep you:
You, plotters and murderers: you, thieves and liars and gluttons: I keep you:
I throw your fraud away: I throw your barbarisms and appetites away: I keep you
I do not argue about you: all ways lead to my heart: you come: I take and keep you and refuse to give you up:
I have uses for you—the final divine uses for you: uses of joy and delight: uses of dreams:
The world has robbed you: you have robbed yourself: now you come to me: take what belongs to you:
And what does belong to you? I belong to you: and all the life and love that any one else has—that belongs to you:
Take it: all ways lead to my heart; you ask why you should come? I only say: come!
All ways lead to my heart: here in my heart life shall be paid off with love:
All the sorrows, all the errors, all the tragedies, shall be paid off with love:
Tonight, here, now, any minute, to all, in full, without stint, without qualm:
Through ten thousand ways men and women and children pouring themselves to me: uplifting their helpless hands: plead for their pay!
No matter which way they turn their faces they turn towards me: all ways lead to my heart:
No matter how much they may be in doubt, that much they go towards me: all doubts lead to my heart:
And if I was to close out one single way leading to my heart all the other ways would be impassable:
And so they all come to me: the hurt and those who hurt them, the victims and those who harm them: all ways lead to my heart:
And the base and the magnanimous, the tainted and the pure, here in my heart at last together, reclaim, restore, their shaken faith: in me reclaim, restore:
All ways lead to my heart.