Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/417

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Leaves of Grass.
409
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever
  continued;)
Of what was once lacking on the earth, and in due
  time has become supplied—And of what will
  yet be supplied,
Because all I see and know, I believe to have purport
  in what will yet be supplied.

3.

Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies,
  wealth, scholarships, and the like,
To me, all that those persons have arrived at, sinks
  away from them, except as it results to their
  bodies and Souls,
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked,
And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and
  mocks himself or herself,
And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness,
  is full of the rotten excrement of maggots,
And often, to me, those men and women pass unwittingly
  the true realities of life, and go toward
  false realities,
And often, to me, they are alive after what custom
  has served them, but nothing more,
And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked sonnambules,
  walking the dusk.

35