Mutate, Page 4

     lifted out of context from
          LEAVES OF GRASS * (by Walt Whitman)

Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?
O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those?
Disportest thou on waters such as those?
Soundest below the Sanskrit and the Vedas?
Then have thy bent unleash'd

Is it the prophet's thought I speak, or am I raving?
What do I know of life? what of myself?
I know not even my own work past or present,
Dim ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,
Of newer better worlds, their mighty parturition,
Mocking, perplexing me.

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And these things I see suddenly, what mean they?
As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal'd my eyes,
Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky,

Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear,
The earth recedes from me into the night,
I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the
     earth is beautiful.

The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow
     and unite--unite now.

To think the thought of death merged in the thought of materials
Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form'd in you,
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes,

     and the imponderable fluids perfect;
Slowly and surely they have pass'd on to this, and slowly
     and surely they yet pass on.