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. 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. 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. 9. 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. 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? We cannot be stopped at a given point—that is no satis faction, 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. If otherwise, all these things came but to ashes of dung, If maggots and rats ended us, then alarum! for we are betrayed! Then indeed suspicion of death. Do you suspect death? should die now: If I were to suspect death, I Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation? I0. 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. How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect is my Soul! How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing 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 im ponderable fluids are perfect; Slowly and surely they have passed on to this, and slowly and surely they yet pass on. 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. I cannot define my satisfaction, yet it is so, I cannot define my life, yet it is so. II. 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! 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! I withdraw from the still woods I loved; I will not go now on the pastures to walk; I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea; I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me. 2. O how can the ground not sicken? How can you be alive, you growths of spring? How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? Are they not continually putting distempered corpses in you? Is not every continent worked over and over with sour dead? Where have you disposed of their carcasses? Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations; I will run a furrow with my plough—I will press my spade through the sod, and turn it up underneath; I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. 3. Behold this compost! behold it well! Perhaps every mite has once formed part of a sick person—Yet behold! |