Growth Health Work

In Walt's Speciman Days post called "Growth -- Health -- Work", he talks about how he grew into a strong young man, maybe too quickly, but as time went on found the things he loved and began writing.  He writes about how he worked as a compositor in printing offices in New York.

Having just read his poem, "A Song for Occupations", I wonder how much of his work in New York relates to that poem.  In his Specimen Days post he says, "This latter I consider one of my best experiences and deepest lessons in human nature behind the scenes, and in the masses."  I think this speaks a lot to the poem.  The poem was not about the work that was being done, the manual labor, but the experience you get from it and how that makes you grow as an individual. In "A Song for Occupations" he says, "I bring not money or amours or dress or eating....but I bring as good; And send no agent or medium...and offer no representative of value - but offer the value itself."  In the poem and the Specimen Days post he believes that if you do good work, you will learn from it.