Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

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¹ ON the beach, at night,

Stands a child, with her father,

Watching the east, the autumn sky.

² Up through the darkness,

While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black
masses spreading,

Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,

Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the
east,

Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;

And nigh at hand, only a very little above,

Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades.

³ From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her
father,

Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to de-
vour all,

Watching, silently weeps.

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⁴ Weep not, child,

Weep not, my darling,

With these kisses let me remove your tears;

The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,

They shall not long possess the sky—shall devour the
stars only inapparition:

Jupiter shall emerge—be patient—watch again
another night—the Pleiades shall emerge,

They are immortal—all those stars, both silvery and
golden, shall shine out again,

The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again—
they endure;

The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive
moons, shall again shine.

⁵ Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter?

Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

⁶ Something there is,

(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,

I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indi-
rection,)

Something there is more immortal even than the stars,

(Many the burials, many the days and night, passing
away,)

Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous
Jupiter,

Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,

Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.

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