The Complete Works of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

drivers, and he

       there takes no interest in them.

      5

       The markets, the government, the working-man’s wages, to think what

       account they are through our nights and days,

       To think that other working-men will make just as great account of

       them, yet we make little or no account.

      The vulgar and the refined, what you call sin and what you call

       goodness, to think how wide a difference,

       To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie

       beyond the difference.

      To think how much pleasure there is,

       Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or

       planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and family?

       Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the

       beautiful maternal cares?

       These also flow onward to others, you and I flow onward,

       But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.

      Your farm, profits, crops — to think how engross’d you are,

       To think there will still be farms, profits, crops, yet for you of

       what avail?

      6

       What will be will be well, for what is is well,

       To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.

      The domestic joys, the dally housework or business, the building of

       houses, are not phantasms, they have weight, form, location,

       Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them

       phantasms,

       The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion,

       The earth is not an echo, man and his life and all the things of his

       life are well-consider’d.

      You are not thrown to the winds, you gather certainly and safely

       around yourself,

       Yourself! yourself!. yourself, for ever and ever!

      7

       It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and

       father, it is to identify you,

       It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided,

       Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form’d in you,

       You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.

      The threads that were spun are gather’d, the wet crosses the warp,

       the pattern is systematic.

      The preparations have every one been justified,

       The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments, the baton

       has given the signal.

      The guest that was coming, he waited long, he is now housed,

       He is one of those who are beautiful and happy, he is one of those

       that to look upon and be with is enough.

      The law of the past cannot be eluded,

       The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,

       The law of the living cannot be eluded, it is eternal,

       The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,

       The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,

       The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons, not one iota thereof

       can be eluded.

      8

       Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth,

       Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried, and they on the

       Atlantic side and they on the Pacific,

       And they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all

       over the earth.

      The great masters and kosmos are well as they go, the heroes and

       good-doers are well,

       The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious and

       distinguish’d may be well,

       But there is more account than that, there is strict account of all.

      The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing,

       The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,

       The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go.

      Of and in all these things,

       I have dream’d that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of

       us changed,

       I have dream’d that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present

       and past law,

       And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and

       past law,

       For I have dream’d that the law they are under now is enough.

      And I have dream’d that the purpose and essence of the known life,

       the transient,

       Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, the permanent.

      If all came but to ashes of dung,

       If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray’d,

       Then indeed suspicion of death.

      Do you suspect death? if I were to suspect death I should die now,

       Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?

      Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,

       Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,

       The whole universe indicates that it is good,

       The past and the present indicate that it is good.

      How beautiful and perfect are the animals!

       How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!

       What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect,

       The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable

       fluids perfect;

       Slowly and surely they have pass’d on to this, and slowly and surely

       they yet pass on.

      9

       I swear I think now that every thing without exception has an eternal soul!

       The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the

       animals!

      I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!

       That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for

       it, and the cohering is for it!

       And all preparation is for it — and identity is for it — and life and

       materials are altogether for it!

      BOOK XXX. WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH

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