Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (1860)

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Enfans d'Adam.

1.

TO the garden, the world, anew ascending,

Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,

The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,

Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber,

The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, having
brought me again,

Amorous, mature—all beautiful to me—all won-
drous,

My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays

through them, for reasons, most wondrous;

Existing, I peer and penetrate still,

Content with the present—content with the past,

By my side, or back of me, Eve following,

Or in front, and I following her just the same.

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2.

FROM that of myself, without which I were nothing,

From what I am determined to make illustrious, even
if I stand sole among men,

From my own voice resonant—singing the phallus,

Singing the song of procreation,

Singing the need of superb children, and therein
superb grown people,

Singing the muscular urge and the blending,

Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!

O for any and each, the body correlative attracting!

O for you, whoever you are, your correlative body!
O it, more than all else, you delighting!)

From the pent up rivers of myself,

From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,

From native moments—from bashful pains—sing-
ing them,

Singing something yet unfound, though I have dili-
gently sought it, ten thousand years,

Singing the true song of the Soul, fitful, at random,

Singing what, to the Soul, entirely redeemed her, the
faithful one, the prostitute, who detained me when
I went to the city,

Singing the song of prostitutes;

Renascent with grossest Nature, or among animals,

Of that—of them, and what goes with them, my
poems informing,

Of the smell of apples and lemons—of the pairing
of birds,

Of the wet of woods—of the lapping of waves,

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Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land—I them
chanting,

The overture lightly sounding—the strain antici-
pating,

The welcome nearness—the sight of the perfect
body,

The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or mo-
tionless on his back lying and floating,

The female form approaching—I, pensive, love-flesh
tremulous, aching;

The slave's body for sale—I, sternly, with harsh
voice, auctioneering,

The divine list, for myself or you, or for any one,
making,

The face—the limbs—the index from head to foot,
and what it arouses,

The mystic deliria—the madness amorous—the utter
abandonment,

(Hark, close and still, what I now whisper to you,

I love you—O you entirely possess me,

O I wish that you and I escape from the rest, and go
utterly off—O free and lawless,

Two hawks in the air—two fishes swimming in the
sea not more lawless than we;)

The furious storm through me careering—I passion-
ately trembling,

The oath of the inseparableness of two together—of
the woman that loves me, and whom I love more
than my life—That oath swearing,

(O I willingly stake all, for you!

O let me be lost, if it must be so!

O you and I—what is it to us what the rest do or
think?

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What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other,
and exhaust each other, if it must be so;)

From the master—the pilot I yield the vessel to,

The general commanding me, commanding all—from
him permission taking,

From time the programme hastening, (I have loitered
too long, as it is;)

From sex—From the warp and from the woof,

(To talk to the perfect girl who understands me—the
girl of The States,

To waft to her these from my own lips—to effuse
them from my own body;)

From privacy—From frequent repinings alone,

From plenty of persons near, and yet the right person
not near,

From the soft sliding of hands over me, and thrusting
of fingers through my hair and beard,

From the long-sustained kiss upon the mouth or
bosom,

From the close pressure that makes me or any man
drunk, fainting with excess,

From what the divine husband knows—from the
work of fatherhood,

From exultation, victory, and relief—from the bed-
fellow's embrace in the night,

From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips, and bosoms,

From the cling of the trembling arm,

From the bending curve and the clinch,

From side by side, the pliant coverlid off throwing,

From the one so unwilling to have me leave—and
me just as unwilling to leave,

(Yet a moment, O tender waiter, and I return,)

From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,

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From the night, a moment, I, emerging, flitting out,

Celebrate you, enfans prepared for,

And you, stalwart loins.

3.

¹ O MY children! O mates!

O the bodies of you, and of all men and women,
engirth me, and I engirth them,

O they will not let me off, nor I them, till I go with
them, respond to them,

And respond to the contact of them, and discorrupt
them, and charge them with the charge of the
Soul.

² Was it doubted if those who corrupt their own bodies
conceal themselves?

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they
who defile the dead?

And if the body does not do as much as the Soul?

And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?

³ The love of the body of man or woman balks account
—the body itself balks account,

That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is
perfect.

⁴ The expression of the face balks account,

But the expression of a well made man appears not
only in his face,

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It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the
joints of his hips and wrists,

It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex
of his waist and knees—dress does not hide
him,

The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes
through the cotton and flannel,

To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem,
perhaps more,

You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck
and shoulder-side.

⁵ The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and
         heads of women, the folds of their dress, their
         style as we pass in the street, the contour of their
         shape downwards,

The swimmer naked in the swimming bath, seen as
         he swims through the transparent green-shine, or
         lies with his face up, and rolls silently to and fro
         in the heave of the water,

The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-
boats—the horseman in his saddle,

Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their perform-
ances,

The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their
open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,

The female soothing a child—the farmer's daughter
in the garden or cow-yard,

The young fellow hoeing corn—the sleigh-driver
guiding his six horses through the crowd,

The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite
grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on
the vacant lot at sun-down, after work,

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The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love
and resistance,

The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled
over and blinding the eyes;

The march of firemen in their own costumes, the
play of masculine muscle through clean-setting
trousers and waist-straps,

The slow return from the fire, the pause when the
bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on
the alert,

The natural, perfect, varied attitudes—the bent head,
the curved neck, and the counting,

Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at
the mother's breast with the little child,

Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers,
march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen,
and count.

⁶ I knew a man,

He was a common farmer—he was the father of five
sons,

And in them were the fathers of sons—and in them
were the fathers of sons.

⁷ This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty
of person,

The shape of his head, the richness and breadth of
         his manners, the pale yellow and white of his
         hair and beard, and the immeasurable meaning
         of his black eyes,

These I used to go and visit him to see—he was wise
also,

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He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old—
his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced,
handsome,

They and his daughters loved him—all who saw him
loved him,

They did not love him by allowance—they loved him
with personal love;

He drank water only—the blood showed like scarlet
through the clear-brown skin of his face,

He was a frequent gunner and fisher—he sailed
         his boat himself—he had a fine one presented
         to him by a ship-joiner—he had fowling-
         pieces, presented to him by men that loved
         him;

When he went with his five sons and many grand-
         sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out
         as the most beautiful and vigorous of the
         gang,

You would wish long and long to be with him—you
would wish to sit by him in the boat, that you
and he might touch each other.

⁸ I have perceived that to be with those I like is
enough,

To stop in company with the rest at evening is
enough,

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing,
laughing flesh is enough,

To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my
arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a
moment—what is this, then?

I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in
a sea.

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⁹ There is something in staying close to men and
women, and looking on them, and in the contact
and odor of them, that pleases the Soul well,

All things please the Soul—but these please the
Soul well.

¹⁰ This is the female form,

A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,

It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,

I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than
a helpless vapor—all falls aside but myself
and it,

Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth,
         the atmosphere and the clouds, and what was
         expected of heaven or feared of hell, are now
         consumed,

Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the
response likewise ungovernable,

Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling
hands, all diffused—mine too diffused,

Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebb—
love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,

Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous,
quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious
juice,

Bridegroom-night of love, working surely and softly
into the prostrate dawn,

Undulating into the willing and yielding day,

Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-fleshed
day.

¹¹ This is the nucleus—after the child is born of
woman, the man is born of woman,

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This is the bath of birth—this is the merge of small
and large, and the outlet again.

¹² Be not ashamed, women—your privilege encloses
the rest, and is the exit of the rest,

You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates
of the Soul.

¹³ The female contains all qualities, and tempers them
—she is in her place, and moves with perfect
balance,

She is all things duly veiled—she is both passive and
active,

She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons
as well as daughters.

¹⁴ As I see my Soul reflected in nature,

As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible com-
pleteness and beauty,

See the bent head and arms folded over the breast—
the female I see.

¹⁵ The male is not less the Soul, nor more—he too is in
his place,

He too is all qualities—he is action and power,

The flush of the known universe is in him,

Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance
become him well,

The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost,
sorrow that is utmost, become him well—pride
is for him,

The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent
to the Soul;

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Knowledge becomes him—he likes it always—he
brings everything to the test of himself,

Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail,
he strikes soundings at last only here,

Where else does he strike soundings, except here?

¹⁶ The man's body is sacred, and the woman's body is
sacred,

No matter who it is, it is sacred;

Is it a slave? Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants
just landed on the wharf?

Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the
well-off—just as much as you,

Each has his or her place in the procession.

¹⁷ All is a procession,

The universe is a procession, with measured and
beautiful motion.

¹⁸ Do you know so much yourself, that you call the slave
or the dull-face ignorant?

Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and
he or she has no right to a sight?

Do you think matter has cohered together from its
diffused float—and the soil is on the surface,
and water runs, and vegetation sprouts,

For you only, and not for him and her?

¹⁹ A man's body at auction!

I help the auctioneer—the sloven does not half know
his business.

²⁰ Gentlemen, look on this wonder!

Whatever the bids of the bidders, they cannot be high
enough for it,

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For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years,
without one animal or plant,

For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily rolled.

²¹ In this head the all-baffling brain,

In it and below it, the making of the attributes of
heroes.

²² Examine these limbs, red, black, or white—they are
so cunning in tendon and nerve,

They shall be stript, that you may see them.

²³ Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,

Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant back-bone and neck,
flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,

And wonders within there yet.

²⁴ Within there runs blood,

The same old blood!

The same red-running blood!

There swells and jets a heart—there all passions,
desires, reachings, aspirations,

Do you think they are not there because they are not
expressed in parlors and lecture-rooms?

²⁵ This is not only one man—this is the father of those
who shall be fathers in their turns,

In him the start of populous states and rich republics,

Of him countless immortal lives, with countless em-
bodiments and enjoyments.

²⁶ How do you know who shall come from the offspring
of his offspring through the centuries?

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Who might you find you have come from yourself, if
you could trace back through the centuries?

²⁷ A woman's body at auction!

She too is not only herself—she is the teeming
mother of mothers,

She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be
mates to the mothers.

²⁸ Her daughters, or their daughters' daughters—who
knows who shall mate with them?

Who knows through the centuries what heroes may
come from them?

²⁹ In them, and of them, natal love—in them that
divine mystery, the same old beautiful mystery.

³⁰ Have you ever loved the body of a woman?

Have you ever loved the body of a man?

Your father—where is your father?

Your mother—is she living? have you been much
with her? and has she been much with you?

Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all,
in all nations and times, all over the earth?

³¹ If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred,

And the glory and sweet of a man, is the token of
manhood untainted,

And in man or woman, a clean, strong, firm-fibred
body, is beautiful as the most beautiful face.

³² Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live
body? or the fool that corrupted her own live
body?

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For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot con-
ceal themselves.

³³ O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in
other men and women, nor the likes of the parts
of you;

I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the
         likes of the Soul, (and that they are the Soul,)
         I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my
         poems—and that they are poems,

Man's, woman's, child's, youth's, wife's, husband's,
mother's, father's, young man's, young woman's
poems,

Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,

Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eye-brows, and the
waking or sleeping of the lids,

Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws,
and the jaw-hinges,

Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,

Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the
neck, neck-slue,

Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoul-
ders, and the ample side-round of the chest,

Upper-arm, arm-pit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-
sinews, arm-bones,

Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb,
fore-finger, finger-balls, finger-joints, finger-nails,

Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-
bone, breast-side,

Ribs, belly, back-bone, joints of the back-bone,

Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward
round, man-balls, man-root,

Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,

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Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,

Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel,

All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of
my or your body, or of any one's body, male or
female,

The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet
and clean,

The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,

Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, ma-
ternity,

Womanhood, and all that is a woman—and the man
that comes from woman,

The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laugh-
ter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and
risings,

The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shout-
ing aloud,

Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking,
swimming,

Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-
curving, and tightening,

The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and
around the eyes,

The skin, the sun-burnt shade, freckles, hair,

The curious sympathy one feels, when feeling with
the hand the naked meat of his own body, or
another person's body,

The circling rivers, the breath, and breathing it in
and out,

The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and
thence downward toward the knees,

The thin red jellies within you, or within me—the
bones, and the marrow in the bones,

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The exquisite realization of health,

O I say now these are not the parts and poems of the
body only, but of the Soul,

O I say these are the Soul!

4.

¹ A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is
lacking,

Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the
moisture of the right man were lacking.

² Sex contains all,

Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies,
results, promulgations,

Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery,
the semitic milk,

All hopes, benefactions, bestowals,

All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the
earth,

All the governments, judges, gods, followed persons
of the earth,

These are contained in sex, as parts of itself, and jus-
tifications of itself.

³ Without shame the man I like knows and avows the
deliciousness of his sex,

Without shame the woman I like knows and avows
hers.

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⁴ O I will fetch bully breeds of children yet!

I will dismiss myself from impassive women,

I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with
those women that are warm-blooded and suffi-
cient for me;

I see that they understand me, and do not deny me,

I see that they are worthy of me—I will be the robust
husband of those women.

⁵ They are not one jot less than I am,

They are tanned in the face by shining suns and blow-
ing winds,

Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,

They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot,
run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend them-
selves,

They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm,
clear, well-possessed of themselves.

⁶ I draw you close to me, you women!

I cannot let you go, I would do you good,

I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our
own sake, but for others' sakes;

Enveloped in you sleep greater heroes and bards,

They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.

⁷ It is I, you women—I make my way,

I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable—but I love
you,

I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,

I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for These
States—I press with slow rude muscle,

I brace myself effectually—I listen to no entreaties,

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I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long
accumulated within me.

⁸ Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,

In you I wrap a thousand onward years,

On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and
of America,

The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and
athletic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers,

The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in
their turn,

I shall demand perfect men and women out of my
love-spendings,

I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I
and you interpenetrate now,

I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of
them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing
showers I give now,

I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death,
immortality, I plant so lovingly now.

5.

SPONTANEOUS me, Nature,

The loving day, the friend I am happy with,

The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,

The hill-side whitened with blossoms of the mountain
ash,

The same, late in autumn—the gorgeous hues of red,
yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green,

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The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—
the private untrimmed bank—the primitive apples
—the pebble-stones,

Beautiful dripping fragments—the negligent list of
one after another, as I happen to call them to me,
or think of them,

The real poems, (what we call poems being merely
pictures,)

The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men
like me,

This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always
carry, and that all men carry,

(Know, once for all, avowed on purpose, wherever are
men like me, are our lusty, lurking, masculine,
poems,)

Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-
climbers, and the climbing sap,

Arms and hands of love—lips of love—phallic thumb
of love—breasts of love—bellies pressed and
glued together with love,

Earth of chaste love—life that is only life after
love,

The body of my love—the body of the woman I
love—the body of the man—the body of the
earth,

Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,

The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and
         down—that gripes the full-grown lady-flower,
         curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes
         his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and
         tight upon her till he is satisfied,

The wet of woods through the early hours,

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Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep,
one with an arm slanting down across and below
the waist of the other,

The smell of apples, aromas from crushed sage-plant,
mint, birch-bark,

The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he con-
fides to me what he was dreaming,

The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl, and falling still
and content to the ground,

The no-formed stings that sights, people, objects, sting
me with,

The hubbed sting of myself, stinging me as much as it
ever can any one,

The sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers, that only
privileged feelers may be intimate where they
are,

The curious roamer, the hand, roaming all over the
body—the bashful withdrawing of flesh where
the fingers soothingly pause and edge themselves,

The limpid liquid within the young man,

The vexed corrosion, so pensive and so painful,

The torment—the irritable tide that will not be at
rest,

The like of the same I feel—the like of the same in
others,

The young woman that flushes and flushes, and the
young man that flushes and flushes,

The young man that wakes, deep at night, the hot
hand seeking to repress what would master him
—the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,

The pulse pounding through palms and trembling
encircling fingers—the young man all colored,
red, ashamed, angry;

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The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing
and naked,

The merriment of the twin-babes that crawl over the
grass in the sun, the mother never turning her
vigilant eyes from them,

The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening
or ripened long-round walnuts,

The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,

The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find
myself indecent, while birds and animals never
once skulk or find themselves indecent,

The great chastity of paternity, to match the great
chastity of maternity,

The oath of procreation I have sworn—my Adamic
and fresh daughters,

The greed that eats me day and night with hungry
gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to
fill my place when I am through,

The wholesome relief, repose, content,

And this bunch plucked at random from myself,

It has done its work—I toss it carelessly to fall
where it may.

6.

¹ O FURIOUS! O confine me not!

(What is this that frees me so in storms?

What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds
mean?)

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² O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other
man!

O savage and tender achings!

(I bequeath them to you, my children,

I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and
bride.)

³ O to be yielded to you, whoever you are, and you to
be yielded me, in defiance of the world!

(Know, I am a man, attracting, at any time, her I but
look upon, or touch with the tips of my fingers,

Or that touches my face, or leans against me.)

⁴ O to return to Paradise!

O to draw you to me—to plant on you, for the first
time, the lips of a determined man!

O rich and feminine! O to show you to realize the
blood of life for yourself, whoever you are—and
no matter when and where you live.

⁵ O the puzzle—the thrice-tied knot—the deep and
dark pool! O all untied and illumined!

O to speed where there is space enough and air
enough at last!

O to be absolved from previous follies and degrada-
tions—I from mine, and you from yours!

O to find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the
best of nature!

O to have the gag removed from one's mouth!

O to have the feeling, to-day or any day, I am suffi-
cient as I am!

⁶ O something unproved! something in a trance!

O madness amorous! O trembling!

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O to escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!

To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and
dangerous!

To court destruction with taunts—with invitations!

To ascend—to leap to the heavens of the love
indicated to me!

To rise thither with my inebriate Soul!

To be lost, if it must be so!

To feed the remainder of life with one hour of ful-
ness and freedom!

With one brief hour of madness and joy.

7.

YOU and I—what the earth is, we are,

We two—how long we were fooled!

Now delicious, transmuted, swiftly we escape, as
Nature escapes,

We are Nature—long have we been absent, but now
we return,

We become plants, leaves, foliage, roots, bark,

We are bedded in the ground—we are rocks,

We are oaks—we grow in the openings side by side,

We browse—we are two among the wild herds,
spontaneous as any,

We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,

We are what the locust blossoms are—we drop scent

around the lanes, mornings and evenings,

We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables,
minerals,

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We are what the flowing wet of the Tennessee is—
we are two peaks of the Blue Mountains, rising
up in Virginia,

We are two predatory hawks—we soar above and
look down,

We are two resplendent suns—we it is who balance
ourselves orbic and stellar—we are as two
comets;

We prowl fanged and four-footed in the woods—we
spring on prey;

We are two clouds, forenoons and afternoons, driving
overhead,

We are seas mingling—we are two of those cheerful
waves, rolling over each other, and interwetting
each other,

We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive,
pervious, impervious,

We are snow, rain, cold, darkness—we are each
product and influence of the globe,

We have circled and circled till we have arrived
home again—we two have,

We have voided all but freedom, and all but our
own joy.

8.

NATIVE moments! when you come upon me—Ah
you are here now!

Give me now libidinous joys only!

Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life
coarse and rank!

To-day, I go consort with nature's darlings—to-night
too,

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I am for those who believe in loose delights—I share
the midnight orgies of young men,

I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drink-
ers,

The echoes ring with our indecent calls,

I take for my love some prostitute—I pick out some
low person for my dearest friend,

He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate—he shall be one
condemned by others for deeds done;

I will play a part no longer—Why should I exile
myself from my companions?

O you shunned persons! I at least do not shun you,

I come forthwith in your midst—I will be your poet,

I will be more to you than to any of the rest.

9.

ONCE I passed through a populous city, imprinting
my brain, for future use, with its shows, architec-
ture, customs, and traditions;

Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman
I casually met there, who detained me for love
of me,

Day by day and night by night we were together,—
All else has long been forgotten by me,

I remember I say only that woman who passionately
clung to me,

Again we wander—we love—we separate again,

Again she holds me by the hand—I must not go!

I see her close beside me, with silent lips, sad and
tremulous.

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10.

INQUIRING, tireless, seeking that yet unfound,

I, a child, very old, over waves, toward the house of
maternity, the land of migrations, look afar,

Look off the shores of my Western Sea—having
arrived at last where I am—the circle almost
circled;

For coming westward from Hindustan, from the vales
of Kashmere,

From Asia—from the north—from the God, the
sage, and the hero,

From the south—from the flowery peninsulas, and
the spice islands,

Now I face the old home again—looking over to it,
joyous, as after long travel, growth, and sleep;

But where is what I started for, so long ago?

And why is it yet unfound?

11.

IN the new garden, in all the parts,

In cities now, modern, I wander,

Though the second or third result, or still further,
primitive yet,

Days, places, indifferent—though various, the same,

Time, Paradise, the Mannahatta, the prairies, finding
me unchanged,

Death indifferent—Is it that I lived long since?
Was I buried very long ago?

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For all that, I may now be watching you here, this
moment;

For the future, with determined will, I seek—the
woman of the future,

You, born years, centuries after me, I seek.

12.

AGES and ages, returning at intervals,

Undestroyed, wandering immortal,

Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly
sweet,

I, chanter of Adamic songs,

Through the new garden, the West, the great cities,
calling,

Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering
these, offering myself,

Bathing myself, bathing my songs in sex,

Offspring of my loins.

13.

O HYMEN! O hymenee!

Why do you tantalize me thus?

O why sting me for a swift moment only?

Why can you not continue? O why do you now
cease?

Is it because, if you continued beyond the swift
moment, you would soon certainly kill me?

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14.

I AM he that aches with love;

Does the earth gravitate? Does not all matter, ach-
ing, attract all matter?

So the body of me to all I meet, or that I know.

15.

EARLY in the morning,

Walking forth from the bower, refreshed with sleep,

Behold me where I pass—hear my voice—approach,

Touch me—touch the palm of your hand to my
body as I pass,

Be not afraid of my body.

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