“I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.”
More from Walt Whitman
“I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”
“When I give, I give myself.”
“I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone, I…”
“I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest.”