Leaves of Grass (1867)
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| SPONTANEOUS me, Nature, |
| The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am
happy with, |
| The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder, |
| The hill-side whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain
ash, |
| The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow,
drab, purple, and light and dark green, |
| The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—
the private untrimm'd 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, avow'd 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 press'd 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, |
)
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| 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 till he is satisfied, |
| The wet of woods through the early hours, |
| 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 crush'd 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-form'd stings that sights, people, objects, sting
me with, |
| The hubb'd sting of myself, stinging me as much as it
ever can any one, |
| The sensitive, orbic, underlapp'd 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 them- selves, |
| 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 man that flushes and flushes, and the
young woman that flushes and flushes, |
| The young man that wakes, deep at night, the hot
hand seeking to repress what would master him; |
| The mystic amorous night—the strange half-welcome
pangs, visions, sweats, |
)
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| The pulse pounding through palms and trembling
encircling fingers—the young man all color'd, red, ashamed, angry; |
| 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 ripen'd 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, pluck'd at random from myself; |
| It has done its work—I toss it carelessly to fall where
it may. |