Walt Whitman

The master-songs are ended, and the

That sang them is a name.

And so is GodA name; and so is love, and life, and death,

And everything.

But we, who are too

To read what we have written, or what

Has written for us, do not understand:

We only blink, and wonder.

Last night it was the song that was the man,

But now it is the man that is the song.

We do not hear him very much to-day:

His piercing and eternal cadence

Too pure for us —- too powerfully pure,

Too lovingly triumphant, and too large;

But there are some that hear him, and they

That he shall sing to-morrow for all men,

And that all time shall listen.

The master-songs are ended?

Rather

No songs are ended that are ever sung,

And that no names are dead names.

When we

Men's letters on proud marble or on sand,

We write them there forever.