The great unrest of which we are part

My thoughts went floating
           on vast and mystic currents
as I sat today in solitude
           in the half-shade by the creek
returning mainly
           to two principal centres

One of my cherished themes
           for a never-finished poem
has been the two impetuses
           of man
and the universe
           —in the latter
creation’s incessant unrest
           exfoliation or
what Darwin termed evolution
           : indeed, what is Nature
but change in all its visible
           and still more
its invisible processes
           and what is humanity
in its faith its love
           its heroism its poetry
even in its morals
           but emotion ?

Walt Whitman

Adapted from Specimen Days (1882) by John Lyons. Happy Thanksgiving in the bicentennial of the great American poet’s birth on 31 May 1819!