Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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| FROM pent-up aching rivers, |
| From that of myself without which I were nothing, |
| From what I am determin'd 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 hungry gnaw that eats me night and day, |
| From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them, |
| Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it
many a long year, |
| Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random, |
| 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, |
| Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting, |
| The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating, |
| The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body, |
| The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his
back lying and floating, |
| The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous
aching, |
| 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 that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, 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 passionately 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? |
| 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 permis-
sion taking, |
| From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter'd too long as
it is,) |
| From sex, from the warp and from the woof, |
| 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 sustain'd 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 bedfellow'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 coverlet off-throwing, |
| From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as un-
willing to leave, |
| (Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,) |
| From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews, |
| From the night a moment I emerging flitting out, |
| Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for, |
| And you stalwart loins. |