Great is death,
Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low.
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all—
Not life alone—death, many deaths, I’ll sing,
A voice triumphant, justifying all, bridging the way from life to death,
Accepting, exulting in death in its turn the same as life—
What invigorates life invigorates death.

Fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death,
Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the dense-pack’d cities all, from me to thee glad serenades,
To place on record faith in you, O death,
Give me your tone therefore, O death, that I may accord with it.

Whispers of heavenly death murmur’d I hear,
Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals;
Mournful voices of the dirges, thy sullen notes send darkness through me.

Tho dirge I started first, sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning,
To joyful shout reverse—not life’s joys alone I sing, I sing the endless finalés of things,
Victorious song, death’s outlet song,
Yet varying ever-altering song, and yet again bursting with joy;
I joyously sing the dead, the joy of death, joys of the thought of death,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death,
Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all.

Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life,
For now it is convey’d to me that you are the purports essential,
That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how long,
That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons, and that they are mainly for you,
That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance,
That maybe you are what it is all for, but it does not last so very long,
But you will last very long.
So I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly—
Only the person has really learned, who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries or avoids death.

Come, lovely and soothing death,
The word of the sweetest song and all songs,
The word stronger and more delicious than any,
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee.
I beat triumphal drums for the dead, I blow through my loudest embouchures,
The loudest and gayest music to them,
Low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven.

After chanting the songs of the body and existence, composed in the flush of my health and strength, I keep my special chants of death and immortality for terminus and temperer to all, to stamp the coloring-finish of all, present and past.
To exhibit the problem and paradox of the same ardent and fully appointed personality with cheerful face estimating death, I end with thoughts, or radiations from thoughts, on death, immortality, and a free entrance into the spiritual world, from the point of view necessitated by my foregoing poems, written in former days of perfect health.
Little did I think the pieces had the purport that now opens to me, suggesting death in the form of a beautiful and perfect young man, emblem of rest and aspiration after action, of crown and point which all lives and poems should steadily have reference to, namely, the justified and noble termination of our identity, this grade of it, and outlet-preparation to another grade.

Let us twain walk aside from the rest,
Let us talk of death, unbosom all freely.
Think of the times you stood at the side of the dying,
Think of the time when your own body will be dying,
Have you supposed it beautiful to be born? I tell you it is just as beautiful to die;
Do you enjoy what life confers? you shall enjoy what death confers;
Has life much purport? Ah, death has the greatest purport.

Sure as life holds all parts together, death holds all parts together,
Sure as the stars return again after they merge in the light, death is great as life;
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,
The dead advance as much as the living advance.
Did you think life was so well provided for, and death, the purport of all life, is not well provided for?
I do not think Life provides for all and for time and space, but I believe heavenly death provides for all.

Who can say that those were least lucky who died the earliest?
Or that those were luckiest who lived the longest?
Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it—
To die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.

Nothing can happen more beautiful than death,
The beautiful touch of death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons—
Soon or late the certain grace,
To set thee free and bear thee home,
The heavenly pardoner death shall come,
Rich, florid, loosener of the stricture-knot called life.

Like an invisible breeze after a long sultry day, death sometimes sets in at last, soothingly and refreshingly, almost vitally. Of the many hundreds I myself saw die, the cases of mark’d suffering or agony in extremis were very rare. In not a few cases the termination even appears to be a sort of ecstasy.

A voice from death, solemn and strange, in all his sweep and power:
Although I come unannounc’d, in horror and in pang, in pouring flood and fire,
I too a minister of Deity.

Approach strong deliveress,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each, sooner or later, delicate death,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.

All over bouquets of roses,
O death, I cover you over with blood-red roses and early lilies,
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you, and the coffins all of you, O death.
Lo! out of death, and out of ooze and slime,
The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, and for love—
But praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death,
The soul turning to thee and the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

O vast and well-veil’d death,
Sweet, peaceful, welcome death, (for life has served its turn,)
Envoy, guide at last of all,
Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion,
Be thou my God.

NEXT: IMMORTALITY

The texts in this anthology should NOT be cited as direct quotations from Whitman. If you want to quote from this site for something you are writing or posting, please read this first (click here).