Book IX: Song of the Answerer

The speaker announces his morning song and introduces the figure of the Answerer as a universal interpreter who responds to human need and uncertainty.

The Answerer commands universal acceptance and embodies a transformative power; all people yield to him and perceive themselves reflected in his presence.

All earthly goods, property, nations, and natural phenomena belong to the Answerer by virtue of his universal role, while others toil for what he inherits.

The Answerer arranges all things—including personal histories and social relations—with plasticity and love, preserving their dignity against future shame.

The Answerer is defined by his capacity to answer all questions and, when a question cannot be answered, to illuminate why it cannot be.

The speaker asserts that a man represents an existential challenge and summons that cannot be avoided or evaded.

While various pursuits seek to provide satisfaction, the Answerer indicates and demonstrates true satisfaction.

The Answerer moves safely and freely in all contexts, possessing the key to human hearts, and those near him are blessed.

The Answerer resolves all human tongues and idioms into his own language, enabling universal understanding and showing how all things join together.

The Answerer speaks with the same authentic courtesy to all—from presidents to field laborers—and all recognize the rightness of his address.

The Answerer moves with ease among the highest political offices as an equal, challenging existing hierarchies.

All professions and classes recognize the Answerer as one of their own, identifying with his specific skills and social position.

The Answerer appears natural and familiar to people of every nation and ethnicity, removed from none and belonging to all.

Travelers of all nations and workers across various occupations and waterways claim the Answerer as their own.

The Answerer transforms the insulter, prostitute, beggar, and angry person; through his presence they transcend their former degradation.

The speaker distinguishes the maker of poems (the Answerer/poet) from mere singers; while singers are common, true poets who beget meaning are historically rare.

The poet-maker, unlike singers, settles fundamental truths about justice, reality, and immortality; his power encircles all things and humanity.

The speaker catalogs singers by their particular roles—eye-singer, ear-singer, night-singer, etc.—each representing a limited and named function.

True poems do not merely please; they embody the august mastery of beauty and represent the final applause of all science and human greatness.

True poems are characterized by divine instinct, breadth of vision, reason, health, rudeness of body, and natural qualities like gayety and air-sweetness.

The poet-maker synthesizes the knowledge and experience of sailors, builders, geometers, chemists, and all professions within his being.

True poems empower readers to create their own poems, religions, politics, and all human endeavors by providing the fundamental tools for such creation.

True poems equilibrate ranks, colors, races, creeds, and sexes without seeking beauty but rather being sought by it.

True poems prepare for death but are not an end; they launch readers into cosmic space and infinite becoming, never allowing them to achieve final contentment.