The Power of Prayer

Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all—that we may be deluded,
That maybe reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That maybe identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
Maybe the things I perceive—the animals, plants, men, hills,
shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night—colors, densities, forms—
Maybe these are, (as doubtless they are,) only apparitions,
and the real something has yet to be known;
(How often they dart out of themselves,
as if to confound me and mock me!
How often I think neither I know,
nor any man knows, aught of them.)

Walt Whitman