I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one… - Walt Whitman

Beautiful dripping fragments — the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to call them to me, or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry

What do you think has become of the young and old
men?
And what do you think has become of the women
and children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does
not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward.... and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed,
and luckier.
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.
I pass death with the dying, and birth with the newwashed
babe.... and am not contained between my hat and
boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and
every one good,
The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts
all good.
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as
immortal and
fathomless as myself;
They do not know how immortal, but I know.

"Listen! I will be honest with you,
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you,
What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting,
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you."

-from "Song of the Open Road"