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Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space ample the fields of Nature.
The body, sluggish, aged, cold the embers left from earlier
fires,
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons
continual;
To frozen clods ever the springs invisible law returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.
In this poem, Walt Whitman speaks about life in terms of spirituality. Though the substances in life will fade away and ultimately die, Whitman notes everything is a circle of life: “Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost;” “ample are time and space;” “ample the fields of Nature;” “The body, slugglish, aged, cold…The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;” “the sun now low…rises for mornings and for noons continual.” Even after the snow covers the entire earth, eventually “spring’s invisible law returns, With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.” The overall tone of the poem is optimistic. He assures the world that even though there may be death and the withering away of life, in the end, there will always be new life. From life, there is death. From death, there is life. Life is a never-ending cycle of continuity.