Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/448

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440
Leaves of Grass.
440

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,

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