NIGHT on the prairies; <br /> The supper is over--the fire on the ground burns low; <br /> The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets: <br /> I walk by myself--I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I <br /> never realized before. <br /> <br /> Now I absorb immortality and peace, <br /> I admire death, and test propositions. <br /> <br /> How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé! <br /> The same Old Man and Soul--the same old aspirations, and the same <br /> content. <br /> <br /> I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day <br /> exhibited, <br /> I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless <br /> around me myriads of other globes. 10 <br /> <br /> Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will <br /> measure myself by them; <br /> And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along <br /> as those of the earth, <br /> Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth, <br /> I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life, <br /> Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to <br /> arrive. <br /> <br /> O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me--as the day cannot, <br /> I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.<br /><br />Walt Whitman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/night-on-the-prairies/
