QUOTE : And I know I am solid and sound,<br />To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually<br />flow,<br />All are written to me, and I must get what the writing<br />means.<br />And I know I am deathless,<br />I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s<br />compass,<br />I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacueg cut<br />with a burnt<br />stick at night.<br />I know I am august,<br />I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be<br />understood,<br />I see that the elementary laws never apologize,<br />I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant<br />my house by<br />after all.<br />I exist as I am, that is enough,<br />If no other in the world be aware I sit content,<br />And if each and all be aware I sit content.<br />One world is aware, and by far the largest to me,<br />and that is myself,<br />And whether I come to my own today or in ten<br />thousand or ten<br />million years,<br />I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness<br />I can wait.<br />My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,<br />I laugh at what you call dissolution,<br />And I know the amplitude of time.<br />I am the poet of the body,<br />And I am the poet of the soul.<br />The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains<br />of hell are<br />with me,<br />The first I graft and increase upon myself.... the latter<br />I<br />translate into a new tongue.