Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/57

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Leaves of Grass.
49

I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut
with a burnt stick at night.

105.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.

106.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.

107.One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and
that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten
thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness
I can wait.

108.My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.

109.I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the Soul.

110.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.

5