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;19
[ begin page 218 ]ppp.01500.226.jpgI 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.