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Scented Herbage of My Breast.

Part of the cluster CALAMUS.

SCENTED HERBAGE OF MY BREAST.

SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best  
 afterwards,
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above  
 death,
Perennial roots, tall leaves—O the winter shall not  
 freeze you, delicate leaves,
Every year shall you bloom again—Out from where you  
 retired, you shall emerge again;
O I do not know whether many, passing by, will dis- 
 cover you, or inhale your faint odor—but I be- 
 lieve a few will;
O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit  
 you to tell, in your own way, of the heart that  
 is under you;
O burning and throbbing—surely all will one day be  
 accomplish'd;
O I do not know what you mean, there underneath  
 yourselves—you are not happiness,
You are often more bitter than I can bear—you burn  
 and sting me,
Yet you are very beautiful to me, you faint-tinged  
 roots—you make me think of Death,
Death is beautiful from you—(what indeed is finally  
 beautiful, except Death and Love?)
—O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my  
 chant of lovers—I think it must be for Death,
For how calm, how solemn it grows, to ascend to the  
 atmosphere of lovers,
Death or life, I am then indifferent—my Soul declines  
 to prefer,
I am not sure but the high Soul of lovers welcomes  
 death most;
Indeed, O Death, I think now these leaves mean pre- 
 cisely the same as you mean;
Grow up taller, sweet leaves, that I may see! grow up  
 out of my breast!
  [ begin page 123 ]ppp.00270.125.jpgSpring away from the conceal'd heart there! Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots, timid  
 leaves!
Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my  
 breast!
Come, I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of  
 mine—I have long enough stifled and choked:
—Emblematic and capricious blades, I leave you—now  
 you serve me not;
Away! I will say what I have to say, by itself, I will escape from the sham that was proposed to me, I will sound myself and comrades only—I will never  
 again utter a call, only their call,
I will raise, with it, immortal reverberations through  
 The States,
I will give an example to lovers, to take permanent  
 shape and will through The States;
Through me shall the words be said to make death  
 exhilarating;
Give me your tone therefore, O Death, that I may ac- 
 cord with it,
Give me yourself—for I see that you belong to me now  
 above all, and are folded inseparably together—  
 you Love and Death are;
Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I  
 was calling life,
For now it is convey'd to me that you are the purports  
 essential,
That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons  
 —and that they are mainly for you,
That you, beyond them, come forth, to remain, the real  
 reality,
That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait,  
 no matter how long,
That you will one day, perhaps, take control of all, That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of  
 appearance,
That may-be you are what it is all for—but it does not  
 last so very long;
But you will last very long.

Part of the cluster CALAMUS.

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