The idea which looms and towers over the rest is the idea of totality—with the accompanying idea of eternity;
The idea of the infinite is the rudder and compass sure amid this troublous voyage,
O’er darkest, wildest wave, through stormiest wind, of man’s or nation’s progress;
Something that fully satisfies—that something is the All, and the idea of the All,
Whoso dilates to the idea of the infinite holds the clue of all grandeur, as all meaning.

O to realize the great spheres, time and space!
The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds.
Of all the plenty there is, no plenty is comparable to the plenty of the beginningless, endless wonder, time, and the other wonder, space,
Of these there is ample store—there is no limit—
Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that,
See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that,
A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not hazard the span or make it impatient.

The shapeless vastnesses of space, vast trackless spaces—
Interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors,
My sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels,
He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit,
And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them.
Wider and wider they spread,
The bulging universe unfolding, expanding, always expanding,
Life in the universe—a vast circular procession, whose rings expand outward and outward, forever outward,
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses.

The human soul will not own any limit, even the widest,
It escapes utterly from all limits, dogmatic standards, and measurements—
If we could fix the line beyond which there was no more material universe, our soul, I think, would pine and begin its death sickness.
Standing on this ground—the last, the highest, only permanent ground—we have peremptorily to dismiss every production, however fine its esthetic or intellectual points, which violates or ignores, or even does not celebrate, the central divine idea of the All;
What is narrower than gravitation, light, life—or less than vast stretches of time, or the slow formation of density, or the patient upheaving of strata—is of no account.

I do not doubt that the universes are limitless,
In vain I try to think how limitless.
Limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein, and poke-weed.

Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
They are but parts, anything is but a part,
Myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all,
A vast similitude interlocks all­­­­­­­­­—
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All men and women,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future—
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d,
And shall forever span them, and compactly hold and enclose them.

All parts of the universe bear reference to each other,
(All other things therefore bear down their influence more or less upon this earth,)
Everything is not established—cannot be justified—in itself alone,
But with reference to a thousand things surrounding, coming before, to come after,
A thousand things to make one, one to make a thousand.

Perhaps this is the kernel of it all: infinite relationships,
Everything with everything—nowhere a break, nowhere a cut—
Such join’d unended links, each hook’d to the next,
Each answering all, each sharing the universe with all,
All referring to all yet each distinct and in its place,
One part does not counteract another part,
All are free yet all held inseparably.

The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite,
Interlaced, composite, many in one,
They unite now—the flowing eternal identity,
The varied All distill’d and sublimated into one,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe.

Ensemble is the word that epitomizes the philosophy of Walt Whitman,
I the ensemble seek to give.
Let others ignore what they may, I reject no part;
Have I forgotten any part?
Come to me whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.
But all must have reference to the ensemble of the universe,
So I will not make poems with reference to parts,
I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble,
To sing the idea of All.

NEXT: TIME AND CHANGE

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).