I Bequeath Myself To The Dirt

From the closing lines of Section 52 of "Song of Myself" in Leaves of Grass, Whitman's final act of self-dissolution: he gives his body to the earth, to grow up again as grass. The lines echo the central symbol of the poem — grass as the evidence of continuous life-death-life renewal — and turn it personal. The poem ends with the poet dispersed everywhere, promising the reader: "I stop somewhere waiting for you." It is one of the most generous closing gestures in American poetry.