Today let’s share part of a very long poem that was written a loooong time ago.
Walt Whitman was an American Poet who lived in the 19th century. He was born May 31, 1819 and died March 26, 1892.
People consider Leaves of Grass is finest work, and a important piece of literature from this period in American history. He worked on it his entire life: it was first published in 1855 and he revised and added to it over six subsequent editions, the last being published only a few months before his death.
From book 9 of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war,
peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing else,
They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
They do not seek beauty, they are sought,
Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing,
fain, love-sick.
They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,
They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,
Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to
learn one of the meanings,
To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless
rings and never be quiet again.