"happy accidents"

Parabola

Leaves of Grass


[Song of Myself]

[7]

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe

       . . . . and am not contained between my hat and boots,

And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good,

The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts good.

I am not earth nor an adjunct of earth,

I am mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and

       fathomless as myself;

They do not know how immortal, but I know.


Walt Whitman