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Spontaneous Me.

Part of the cluster CHILDREN OF ADAM.

SPONTANEOUS ME.

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 ap- 
 ples—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 pic- 
 tures,)
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, 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,
  [ begin page 112 ]ppp.00270.114.jpg 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,
The pulse pounding through palms and trembling en- 
 circling 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,
  [ begin page 113 ]ppp.00270.115.jpg 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.

Part of the cluster CHILDREN OF ADAM.

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