Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

contents | previous | next

OF him I love day and night I dream'd I heard he was dead,

And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love, but he
was not in that place,

And I dream'd I wander'd searching among burial-places to find
him,

And I found that every place was a burial-place;

The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is
now,)

The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago,
Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the
dead as of the living,

View Page 341

And fuller, O vastly fuller of the dead than of the living;

And what I dream'd I will henceforth tell to every person and age,

And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream'd,

And now I am willing to disregard burial-places and dispense
with them,

And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently every-
where, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be
satisfied,

And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be
duly render'd to powder and pour'd in the sea, I shall be
satisfied,

Or if it be distributed to the winds I shall be satisfied.

contents | previous | next