the joys of life, and await death with perfect equanimity, Because of my tender and boundless love for him I love and because of his boundless love for me.
To Be at All
( Cf. Stanza 27, “Song of Myself,” )
To be at all—what is better than that? I think if there were nothing more developed, the clam in its callous shell in the sand were august enough. I am not in any callous shell; I am cased with supple conductors, all over They take every object by the hand, and lead it within me; They are thousands, each one with his entry to himself; They are always watching with their little eyes, from my head to my feet; One no more than a point lets in and out of me such bliss and magnitude, I think I could lift the girder of the house away if it lay between me and whatever I wanted.
Death’s Valley
To accompany a picture; by request. “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” from the painting by George Inness.
Nay, do not dream, designer dark, Thou hast portray’d or hit thy theme entire; I, hoverer of late by this dark valley, by its confines, having glimpses of it, Here enter lists with thee, claiming my right to make a symbol too. For I have seen many wounded soldiers die, After dread suffering—have seen their lives pass off with smiles; And I have watch’d the death-hours of the old; and seen the infant die; The rich, with all his nurses and his doctors; And then the poor, in meagreness and poverty; And I myself for long, O Death, have breath’d my every breath Amid the nearness and the silent thought of thee.
And out of these and thee, I make a scene, a song (not fear of thee, Nor gloom’s ravines, nor bleak, nor dark—for I do not fear thee, Nor