Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall. - Walt Whitman

Song of myself
think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their
possession.

I wonder where they get those tokens,
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?

And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present — and can be none in the future; And I will show that, whatever happens to anybody, it may be turned to beautiful results — and I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death; And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact, And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any. I will not make poems with reference to parts; But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says, thoughts, with reference to ensemble: And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days; And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a poem, but has reference to the soul; Because, having looked at the objects of the universe, I find there is no one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the soul.

Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,
Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,
With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch'd, and the white now gray
and ashy,
One wither'd rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;
But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?
Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?
No, while memories subtly play — the past vivid as ever;
For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,
Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:
So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,
It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid.