“There was a child went forth every day,And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.The early lilacs became part of this child,And grass and white and red morning glories, and white and red clover,And the song of the phoebe-bird,And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf,And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side,And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid,And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him.”

“When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with such applause in the lecture room,How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.”

“Though he would sometimes not touch a book for a week, he generally spent part of each day in reading…if he sat in the library an hour, he would have half a dozen volumes around him, on the table, on chairs and on the floor. He seemed to read a few pages here and a few pages there, and pass from place to place, from volume to volume…sometimes (though very rarely) he would get sufficiently interested in a volume to read it all.”

“A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. Tenderly will I use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps, And here you are the mothers' laps. This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, Darker than the colorless beards of old men, Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. ...What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

“There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.”

“I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.”

“Song of myselfA child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.”