For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.

Song of Myself. Stanza 44.

My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,

On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps,
All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount.

I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass.

Ibid. Stanza 20.

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.

Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out.

Song of Myself. Stanza 20.

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

Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God,
But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.

Passage to India. Stanza 9.

O Thou transcendent,

Nameless, the fibre and the breath,

Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,
Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,
Thou moral, spiritual fountain-affection's source—thou reservoir,
(O pensive soul of me-O thirst unsatisfied-waitest not there?
Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?)
Thou pulse-thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,

How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if, out of myself,
I could not launch, to those, superior universes?

To fashion's, custom's discord,

To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,
Soothing each lull a strain is heard, just heard,
From some far shore the final chorus sounding.

O the blest eyes, the happy hearts,

That see, that know the guiding thread so fine,
Along the mighty labyrinth.

Give me to hold all sounds, (I madly struggling cry,)

Fill me with all the voices of the universe,

Endow me with their throbbings, Nature's also,

The tempests, waters, winds, operas and chants, marches and dances,
Utter, pour in, for I would take them all!

All, all for immortality,

Love like the light silently wrapping all,

Nature's amelioration blessing all,

The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,

Proud Music of the Storm.

Stanza 5.

Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.