And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me.... And as to you corpse, I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing, I reach to the leafy lips — I reach to the polished breasts of melons. And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much? Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.

I and this mystery, here we stand.

Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death.

More and more too, the old name absorbs into me. Mannahatta, 'the place encircled by many swift tides and sparkling waters.' How fit a name for America's great democratic island city! The word itself, how beautiful! how aboriginal! how it seems to rise with tall spires, glistening in sunshine, with such New World atmosphere, vista and action!

Long have you timidly waded Holding a plank by the shore, Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, To jump off in the midst of the sea, Rise again, nod to me, shout, And laughingly dash with your hair.