The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood;
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves
in the ways of him—he strangely transmutes them,
They are not vile any more—they hardly know themselves, they are so grown.
BURIAL.
1.
To think of it!
To think of time—of all that retrospection!
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!
Have you guessed you yourself would not continue?
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?
Have you feared the future would be nothing to you?
Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?
If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing.
To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women were flexible,
real, alive! that everything was alive!
To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part!
To think that we are now here, and bear our part!
2.
Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without an accouchement!
Not a day passes-not a minute or second, without a corpse!
The dull nights go over, and the dull days also,
The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,
The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible look
for an answer,
The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are
sent for;
Medicines stand unused on the shelf—(the camphor-smell has long pervaded
the rooms,)
The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying,
The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,
The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases,
The corpse stretches on the bed, and the living look upon it,
It is palpable as the living are palpable.
The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight, But without eyesight lingers a different living, and looks curiously on the corpse.