Youth, Day, Old Age and Night Youth, large, lusty, loving — youth full of grace, force, fascination, Do you know that Old Age may come after you with… - Walt Whitman

And I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually
flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing
means.
And I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s
compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacueg cut
with a burnt
stick at night.
I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be
understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant
my house by
after all.
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by far the largest to me,
and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten
thousand or ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness
I can wait.
My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.
I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the soul.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains
of hell are
with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself.... the latter
I
translate into a new tongue.

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

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment — what is this, then?
I do not ask any more delight — I swim in it, as in a sea.