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| Leaves of Grass (1867) contents
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TO A STRANGER.
| PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
 
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| You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)
 
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| I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, |  
| All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affection- ate, chaste, matured,
 
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| You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,
 
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| I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine
 only,
 
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| You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard, breast, hands,
 in return,
 
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| I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
 
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| I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again, |  
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| I am to see to it that I do not lose you. |  |  |  |