Earth, Jupiter, and Venus, seen from Mars.
I do not know what is untried and afterward;
But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.Each who passes is consider'd--each who stops is consider'd--
not a single one can it fail
Nor anything in the myriads of spheres--nor one of the myriads
of myriads that inhabit them...
. . . . . . . . . . . .
And all I see, multiplied as high as I can cipher, edge but the rim
of the farther systems.
Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding,
Outward and outward, and forever outward.
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.
There is no stoppage, and never can be stoppage;
If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces,
were at this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not
avail in the long run;
We should surely bring up again where we now stand,
And as surely go as much farther--and then farther and farther.
A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not
hazard the span, or make it impatient;
They are but parts--anything is but a part.
See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that;
Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
This day before dawn I ascended a hill, and look'd at the crowded
heaven,
And I said to my Spirit, When we become the enfolders of those
orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them,
shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?
And my Spirit said, No, we but level that lift, to pass and continue
beyond.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
composed before a million universes.
From "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855.
What were you doing on Mars? No lakes up there.
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