Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it. - Walt Whitman

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare-bosom’d night — press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds — night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night — mad naked summer night. — Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself, 21,” Leaves of Grass: The Deathbed Edition (BOMC, 1992)

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the imperious waves,