I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men-I saw them;
I saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war;
But I saw they were not as was thought;
They themselves were fully at rest-they suffer'd not;
The living remain'd and suffer'd-the mother suffer'd,
And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffer'd,
And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.
And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me.... And as to you corpse, I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing, I reach to the leafy lips — I reach to the polished breasts of melons. And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd / And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, / I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Now understand me well. It is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary.
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.
Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, In things best known to you, finding the best, or as good as the best, In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest; Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place-not for another hour, but this hour.
The soul is always beautiful, it appears more or it appears less,
it comes or it lags behind,
It comes from its embowered garden
and looks pleasantly on itself and encloses the world.
What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to my goodwill, Scattering if freely forever.
The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them.