Toward the beginning of the poem, the speaker who "wander[s] all night in my vision" observes,

The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,
   The prisoner sleeps well in the prison . . . . the runaway son sleeps,

   The murderer that is to be hung next day . . . . how does he sleep?
   And the murdered person . . . . how does he sleep?

By the end, he answers this troubling question by performing a kind of imaginative healing of wounds, differences, and distinctions, knitting together the fabric of American society:

The scholar kisses the teacher and the teacher kisses the scholar . . . . the
  wronged is made right,
The call of the slave is one with the master's call . . and the master salutes
   the slave,
The felon steps forth from the prison . . . . the insane becomes sane . . . .
   the suffering of sick persons is relieved,
The sweatings and fevers stop . . the throat that was unsound is sound . . .
   the lungs of the consumptive are resumed . . the poor distressed head is
   free,
The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother than
   ever,
Stiflings and passages open . . . .

Click here for the complete Deathbed (1891-2) version of this poem