Nov 05
| 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 new-washed 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.
Now, I feel the need to explain why I have chosen this particular passage from the Song of Myself. First, and the foremost, I felt it close to my own understanding of the world. I could not but admire the tranquility with which he speaks of death as of something, not only perfectly normal, but also beautiful. It made me wonder what would my life be like if I too were so free from fear and so courageous to “stare directly into the sun”. Maybe the only way to live as fully as possible is to rid oneself of the fear of the eventual end. An that is what Whitman says in these lines – if you want to celebrate life, first you must accept death, not as the end, but as an inevitable change.
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