“And I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually
flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing
means.
And I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s
compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacueg cut
with a burnt
stick at night.
I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be
understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant
my house by
after all.
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.
One world is aware, and by far the largest to me,
and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten
thousand or ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness
I can wait.
My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.
I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the soul.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains
of hell are
with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself.... the latter
I
translate into a new tongue.”
―
Walt Whitman,
Leaves of Grass
