Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/391

Rh What is it, then, between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years
 * between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and
 * place avails not.

I too lived, (I was of old Brooklyn,) I too walked the streets of Manhattan Island, and
 * bathed in the waters around it,

I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within
 * me,

In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they
 * came upon me,

In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my
 * bed, they came upon me.

I too had been struck from the float forever held in
 * solution,

I too had received identity by my body, That I was, I knew was of my body—and what I
 * should be, I knew I should be of my body.

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, The dark threw patches down upon me also, The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious, My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not
 * in reality meagre? would not people laugh
 * at me?

It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil, I am he who knew what it was to be evil,