Kärlek Med Öppna Armar

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset — earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow'd earth — rich apple-blossom'd earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.

Prodigal, you have given me love — therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.

Through the twenty first part of the poem Song Of Myself, Walt Whitman conveys that all humans should respect the earth as we will all eventually become part of it. Whitman believes that nature should be appreciated and embraced as someone dies. The word Earth is used to refer to nature in the poem.

Whitman writes about nature at night as death. Whitman sets up death/night as his lover to promote the idea that nature gives us life and in death we repay it.

This poem also shows how Whitman would likely agree with modern day environmentalists. For example, the poem indicates that the passionate love Whitman promotes is being buried in the ground without a casket. This allows someone to decompose and become one with nature. This decomposition makes it less wasteful than a casket burial. Whitman’s praise of nature also sounds a lot like the way environmentalists would describe nature. Due to this I believe that Whitman would also be opposed to humanities ravaging of earth’s land and resources for personal gain. He seems to believe that humanity and nature should coexist in harmony. Whitman clearly believes that the relationship between man and nature should be that of lovers not fighters.