Twee gedichten van Walt Whitman (1)

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE

On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of 

the clef of the universe and of the future.

A vast similtude interlocks all,
All spheres grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place hoever wilde,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living, bodies though the be ever so different

or in different worlds,

All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations colours, barbarisms, civilisations, languages,

All identities that have existed or many exist on this globe or any globe,"

All lives and deaths, all of the past, presnt, future,
This vast similitude spans hem, and always has spann'd.

And shall for ever san them and compactly hold and enclose them.

1856

De Amerikaanse auteur Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

AS THEY DRAW TO A CLOSE

As they draw to a close
Of what underlies the precendent songs — of my aims in them,
Of the seed I have sought to plant in them,
Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them.
(For them, for them have I lived, in them my work is done,)
Of many an aspiration fond, of many a dream and plan;
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing eternal identity,
To Nature encompassing these, encompassing God — to the joyous, electric all,
To the sense of Death, and accepting exulting in Death in its turn the same as life,
The entrance of man to sing;
To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives,
To put rapport the mountains and rocks and streams,
And the winds of the north, and the forest of oak and pine,
With you O soul.
1871
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Zie ook enkele markante uitspraken van deze uitzonderlijke mens en schrijver, in een bijdrage van zondag 10 oktober, opgenomen op onze zustersite Tempel der Wijze Woorden