To be at all

Here's a well-known Walt Whitman verse, taken from the pictured 1995 'complete poems':


Song of Myself (To Be At All)

To be in any form, what is that?
(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither,)
If nothing lay more develop'd the quahaug in its callous shell were enough.

Mine is no callous shell,
I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.

I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,
To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand.

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Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)

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