Leaves of Grass (1860)/Burial

by Walt Whitman

Layout 2

BURIAL.

1.To think of it!
To think of time—of all that retrospection!
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!

2.Have you guessed you yourself would not continue?
Have you dreaded those earth-beetles?
Have you feared the future would be nothing to you?

3.Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?
If the future is nothing, they are just as surely
nothing.

4.To think that the sun rose in the east! that men
and women were flexible, real, alive! that everything
was alive!
To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor
bear our part!
To think that we are now here, and bear our part!

5.Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without
an accouchment!
Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without a
corpse!

6.The dull nights go over, and the dull days also,
The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,

The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent
and terrible look for an answer,
The children come hurried and weeping, and the
brothers and sisters are sent for,
Medicines stand unused on the shelf—(the camphor-smell
has long pervaded the rooms,)
The faithful hand of the living does not desert
the hand of the dying,
The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of
the dying,
The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases,
The corpse stretches on the bed, and the living look
upon it,
It is palpable as the living are palpable.

7.The living look upon the corpse with their eye-sight,
But without eye-sight lingers a different living, and
looks curiously on the corpse.

8.To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall,
and fruits ripen, and act upon others as upon
us now—yet not act upon us!
To think of all these wonders of city and country,
and others taking great interest in them—and
we taking no interest in them!

9.To think how eager we are in building our houses!
To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite
indifferent!

10.I see one building the house that serves him a few
years, or seventy or eighty years at most,
I see one building the house that serves him longer
than that.

11.Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole
earth—they never cease—they are the burial
lines,
He that was President was buried, and he that is now
President shall surely be buried.

12.Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf—posh and
ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets,
a gray discouraged sky overhead, the short last
daylight of Twelfth Month,
A hearse and stages—other vehicles give place—
the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver, the
cortege mostly drivers.

13.Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the
death-bell, the gate is passed, the new-dug grave
is halted at, the lining alight, the hearse uncloses.
The coffin is passed out, lowered and settled, the
whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly
shovelled in.
The mound above is flatted with the spades—
silence,
A minute, no one moves or speaks—it is done.
He is decently put away—is there anything more?

14.He was a good fellow, free-mouthed, quick-tempered,
not bad-looking, able to take his own part, witty,
sensitive to a slight, ready with life or death for
a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty,
drank hearty, had known what it was to be
flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sickened,
was helped by a contribution, died, aged forty-one
years—and that was his funeral.

15Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves,
strap, wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen,
boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on
you, you loafing on somebody, head-way, man
before and man behind, good day's work, bad
day's work, pet stock, mean stock, first out, last
out, turning in at night,
To think that these are so much and so nigh to
other drivers—and he there takes no interest
in them!

16.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!

17.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.

18.To think how much pleasure there is!
Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have
you pleasure from poems?
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
house-work? 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.

19.Your farm, profits, crops,—to think how engrossed
you are!

To think there will still be farms, profits, crops—yet
for you, of what avail?

20.What will be, will be well—for what is, is well,
To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall
be well.

21.The sky continues beautiful,
The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated,
nor the pleasure of women with men, nor the
pleasure from poems,
The domestic joys, the daily house-work or business,
the building of houses—these 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-considered.

22.You are not thrown to the winds—you gather certainly
and safely around yourself,
Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, forever and ever!

23.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
formed in you,
You are thenceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.

24.The threads that were spun are gathered, the weft
crosses the warp, the pattern is systematic.

25.The preparations have every one been justified,
The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments,
the baton has given the signal.

26.The guest that was coming—he waited long, for
reasons—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.

27.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 of it can be eluded.

28.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.

29.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 distinguished, may be well,
But there is more account than that—there is strict
account of all.

30.The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked
are not nothing,
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
The common people of Europe are not nothing—the
American aborigines are not nothing,
The infected in the immigrant hospital are not
nothing—the murderer or mean person is not
nothing,
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not
nothing as they go,
The lowest prostitute is not nothing—the mocker of
religion is not nothing as he goes.

31.I shall go with the rest—we have satisfaction,
I have dreamed that we are not to be changed so
much, nor the law of us changed,
I have dreamed 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 dreamed that the law they are under now
is enough.

32.And I have dreamed that the satisfaction is not so
much changed, and that there is no life without
satisfaction;
What is the earth? what are body and Soul, without
satisfaction?

33.I shall go with the rest,
We cannot be stopped at a given point—that is no
satisfaction,
To show us a good thing, or a few good things, for a
space of time—that is no satisfaction,
We must have the indestructible breed of the best,
regardless of time.

34.If otherwise, all these things came but to ashes of
dung,
If maggots and rats ended us, then alarm! for we are
betrayed!
Then indeed suspicion of death.

35.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?

36.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.

37.How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How
perfect is my Soul!
How perfect the earth, and the minutest tiling 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 are perfect;
Slowly and surely they have passed on to this, and
slowly and surely they yet pass on.

38.My Soul! if I realize you, I have satisfaction,
Animals and vegetables! if I realize you, I have
satisfaction,
Laws of the earth and air! if I realize you, I have
satisfaction.

39.I cannot define my satisfaction, yet it is so,
I cannot define my life, yet it is so.

40.O it comes to me now!
I swear I think now that everything without
exception has an eternal Soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of
the sea have! the animals!

41.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 death are altogether for it!