Verse > Walt Whitman > Leaves of Grass
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Walt Whitman (1819–1892).  Leaves of Grass.  1900.

202. Assurances


I NEED no assurances—I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul; 
I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of—calm and actual faces; 
I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world; 
I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless—in vain I try to think how limitless; 
I do not doubt that the orbs, and the systems of orbs, play their swift sports through the air on purpose—and that I shall one day be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they;         5
I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on, millions of years; 
I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors—and that the eye-sight has another eye-sight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice; 
I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are provided for—and that the deaths of young women, and the deaths of little children, are provided for; 
(Did you think Life was so well provided for—and Death, the purport of all Life, is not well provided for?) 
I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of them—no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points;  10
I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen, any where, at any time, is provided for, in the inherences of things; 
I do not think Life provides for all, and for Time and Space—but I believe Heavenly Death provides for all. 


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