Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (1860)

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7.

I NEED no assurances—I am a man who is pre-
occupied, of his own Soul;

I do not doubt that whatever I know at a given time,
there waits for me more, which I do not know;

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 there are realizations I have no idea of,
waiting for me through time, and through the
universes—also upon this earth;

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;

I do not doubt there is far more in trivialities, insects,
vulgar persons, slaves, dwarfs, weeds, rejected
refuse, than I have supposed;

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I do not doubt there is more in myself than I have
supposed—and more in all men and women—
and more in my poems than I have supposed;

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;

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 pro-
         vided for, to the minutest point;

I do not doubt that shallowness, meanness, malig-
nance, are provided for;

I do not doubt that cities, you, America, the re-
mainder of the earth, politics, freedom, degra-
dations, are carefully provided for;

I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen,
any where, at any time, is provided for, in the
inherences of things.

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