Chapter 1

Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn'd love;

But now I think there is no unreturn'd love―the pay is certain, one way or another;

(I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return'd;

Yet out of that, I have written these songs.)

-- Walt Whitman --

I exist as I am―that is enough;

If no other in the world be aware, I sit content,

And if each and all be aware, I sit content.

One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself;

And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thousand or ten million years,

I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

-- Walt Whitman --