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 | Leaves of grass. |  |
3.
1 NIGHT on the prairies;
The supper is over — the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets;
I walk by myself — I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized before.
2 Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.
3 How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!
The same Old Man and Soul — the same old aspira- tions, and the same content.
4 I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes.
5 Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will measure myself by them;
And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, ar- rived as far along as those of the earth,
Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those
of the earth,
I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive.
6 O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me — as the day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
The supper is over — the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets;
I walk by myself — I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized before.
2 Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.
3 How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!
The same Old Man and Soul — the same old aspira- tions, and the same content.
4 I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes.
5 Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will measure myself by them;
And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, ar- rived as far along as those of the earth,
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I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive.
6 O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me — as the day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
| Leaves of grass. | |