You air that serves me with breath to speak! You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape! You light that wraps me and all th… - Walt Whitman

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die,

HOW solemn, as one by one,
As the ranks returning, all worn and sweaty — as the men file by where I stand;
As the faces, the masks appear — as I glance at the faces, studying the masks;
(As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you are;)
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul, to each in the ranks, and to you;
I see behind each mask, that wonder, a kindred soul;
O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
Nor the bayonet stab what you really are:
... The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best,
Waiting, secure and content, which the bullet could never kill,
Nor the bayonet stab, O friend!

After all, the great lesson is that no special natural sights — -not Alps, Niagara, Yosemite or anything else — -is more grand or more beautiful than the ordinary sunrise and sunset, earth and sky, the common trees and grass.