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I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his

face,

Leaving it to you to prove and define it,

Expecting the main things from you s☛ ♪☛

NOME lovely and soothing death,

C

Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,

In the day, in the night, to all, to each,

Sooner or later delicate death.

Prais'd be the fathomless universe,

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love-but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool enfolding death

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,

Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,

I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly s

Approach, strong deliveress,

When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing

the dead,

Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,

Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death

From me to thee glad serenades,

Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,

And the sights of the open landscape and the high spread sky are fitting,

And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night in silence under many a star,

The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,

And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee ›☛ ♪☛

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,

Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,

Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,

I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death se

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I watched the plowman plowing,

or the

Or the sower sowing in the fields, or the harvester

harvesting,

I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies; (Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according).

They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,

But I know that they go toward the best-toward something great se se

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full

hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is

any more than he

All truths wait in all things: They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it ›☛☛

I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured.

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes).

Produce great Persons, the rest follows

Come forward O my soul, and let the rest retire.

AIL forth-steer for the deep waters only,

SAIL

Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with

me,

For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!

O farther, farther sail!

O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God? O farther, farther, farther sail

LIVING always, always dying!

O the burials of me past and present,

O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as

ever;

O me, what I was for years, now dead (I lament not, I am

content);

O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at where I cast them,

To pass on (O living! always living!), and leave the corpses behind

TOT from successful love alone,

Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;

But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm, As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky, As softness, fullness, rest, suffuse the flame, like fresher,

balmier air,

As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,

Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!

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Y this time the whole world should know that the real bible has not yet been written, but is being written, and that it will never be finished until the race begins its downward march, or ceases to exist

The real bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of Christs. Every man who finds a fact adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or signs. It makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. It appeals to man in the name of demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be trues It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its

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