As at thy portals also death,
Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,
To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,
To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,
(I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still,
I sit by the form in the coffin,
I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks, the closed eyes in the coffin;)
To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life, love, to me the best,
I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs,
And set a tombstone here.
Public-domain source text
As at Thy Portals Also Death
by Walt Whitman
From Standard Ebooks · standardebooks/walt-whitman_leaves-of-grass
Source record
This is a source transcription from Standard Ebooks, published in Past Poetry’s public-domain archive without line-by-line editorial notes. Public-domain source edition. Availability can vary by territory.
View the source edition →