Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (1867)

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ASSURANCES.

I NEED no assurances—I am a man who is pre-
occupied, 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 pur-
         pose—and that I shall one day be eligible to
         do as much as they, and more than they;

I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on,
millions of years;

I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and ex-
         teriors 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
         provided for, to the minutest points;

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

I do not doubt that cities, you, America, the remain-
der of the earth, politics, freedom, degrada-
tions, 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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