Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Edition (Illustrated)

by Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

Lack one lacks both . . . and the unseen is proved by the seen, Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,

All goes onward and outward . . . and nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself; They do not know how immortal, but I know.

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,

I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content.

I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.

And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

All truths wait in all things, They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,