I have heard what the talkers were talking,
The talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end;
We live here from year to year, and at the end of one we find ourselves at about the same place which we filled in the beginning.

Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle,
The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again,
O present, I return, while yet I may, to you.

I know that the past was great and the future will be great,
And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time.
Past and present and future are not disjoined,
Time and events are compact,
Both future and past are the present only;
We call one the past, and we call another the future,
But both are alike the present.

It is not the past, though we call it so,
Nor the future, though we call it so,
All the while it is the present only—
Real objects today, symptoms of the past and future,
The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
Strands of a trio twining, present, future, past.

I was looking a long while for the poem of the past and now I have found it,
It is the present—it is this Earth today.
I raise the present on the past,
I raise a voice to exalt the present and the real,
Distilling the present hour, whatever, wherever it is.
Others adorn the past, but you, O days of the present, I adorn you,
I will attire you in as much beauty as the days that are past.

Still the gliding present I raise aloft,
The unsurpassed grandeur of the present times,
Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start.
Where I am or you are this present resplendent day, the present scene, there is the centre of all days, all races,
And there is the meaning to us of all that has ever come of races and days, or ever will come.

It is good to live in this age—there never was any better,
This minute that comes to me over the past decillions, there is no better than it and now,
There was never any more inception than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than now.

The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?
We stand amid time, beginningless and endless,
That which is endless as it was beginningless, and can never cease,
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Something more immortal even than the stars.

Eternity lies in bottomless reservoirs,
Its buckets are rising for ever and ever,
They pour and pour.
Eternity rises up from its inconceivable vagueness and infiniteness in the swimming shape of today,
It is the bond of time—eternity’s music, singing all time, minding no time—
And makes the present spot the passage from what was to what shall be.

Eternity gives similitude to all periods and locations and processes and animate and inanimate forms,
One age is but a part—ages are but a part,
O all, all inseparable—ages, ages, ages!
I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days.

NEXT: MATTER AND SPIRIT

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).