Now while I sat in the day and looked forth,
In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the
          farmers preparing their crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests. 
In the heavenly aerial beauty (after the perturbed winds and the storms),
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices
          of children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sailed,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with
          labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its
          meals and minutia of daily usages,
And the streets how their throbbings throbbed, and the cities pent—­lo,
         then and there,
Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
Appeared the cloud, appeared the long black trail,
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of
          companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest received me,
The gray-brown bird I know received us comrades three,
And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

Come, lovely and soothing death.  Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the, day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death.

Praised be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love—­but praise! praise! praise!  For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

Dark mother, always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?  Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach, strong deliveress!  When it is so, when thou, hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O death.

From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee, I propose, saluting thee, adornments and feastings for
          thee;
And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night—­