Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/235

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Leaves of Grass.
227

I love them quits and quits—I do not halt and make
salaams.

3.I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things,
and the reasons of things,
They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen.

4.I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot
say it to myself—it is very wonderful.

5.It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe,
moving so exactly in its orbit forever and ever,
without one jolt, or the untruth of a single
second,
I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten
thousand years, nor ten billions of years,
Nor planned and built one thing after another, as an
architect plans and builds a house.

6.I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or
woman,
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a
man or woman,
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or
any one else.

7.Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every
one is immortal,
I know it is wonderful—but my eye-sight is equally
wonderful, and how I was conceived in my mother's
womb is equally wonderful;