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My wife was indignant , and I should not wonder if she wrote a reply to it. W. W.
—I reached out my hand to feel the life-blood thrill beneath my fingers—I was faint with transport.
arms above my head to catch the stray sunbeams;—hugged it to my bosom transported with extatic emotion
;—yet never came before my vision sensual forms or thought found place in my imagination;—Was I passionless
—the warm, sympathetic tears that crept from beneath my eyelids and rolled lovingly down my bosom, soothing
my beating heart?
This poem later appeared as "Calamus No. 40," Leaves of Grass (1860); as "That Shadow My Likeness," Leaves
my Soul!
We closed with him—the yards entangled—the cannon touched, My captain lashed fast with his own hands.
I laughed content when I heard the voice of my little captain, We have not struck, he composedly cried
O the real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh; O my body, done with materials—my
my brother or my sister! Keep on!
Have you studied out MY LAND, its idioms and men?
What is this you bring my America? Is it uniform with my country?
in your and my name, the Present time.
Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness, Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, Natural life of me, faithfully
To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose- colored flesh, To be conscious of my body, so amorous
body to meet my lover the sea, I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me
and which are my miracles?
friends, but listen to my enemies—as I my- self myself do; I charge you, too, forever, reject those
WHO learns my lesson complete?
Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chained with iron, or my ankles with iron?
O MY children! O mates!
O my body!
, Or that touches my face, or leans against me.)
songs in sex, Offspring of my loins. 13.
voice—approach, Touch me—touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, Be not afraid of my body.
O blossoms of my blood!
face—from my forehead and lips, From my breast—from within where I was con- cealed concealed —Press
CITY of my walks and joys!
my likeness!
, Here I shade down and hide my thoughts—I do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem, I whisper with my lips close to your
O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago, I should have blabbed
paint myriads of heads, but paint no head with- out without its nimbus of gold-colored light, From my
my brother or my sister! Keep on!
Softly I lay my right hand upon you—you just feel it, I do not argue—I bend my head close, and half-
it harmed me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself—As if it were not indispensable to my
AS I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while the music is playing, To my mind, (whence it
if that were not the resumé; Of Histories—As if such, however complete, were not less complete than my
poems; As if the shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as my poems; As if here
36 DESPAIRING cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night, The sad voice of Death—the call of my
alarmed, uncertain, This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me, Come tell me where I am speeding—tell me my
home in Kanuck woods, Or wandering and hunting, my drink water, my diet meat, Or withdrawn to muse and
In the Year 80 of The States, My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air, Born
Take my leaves, America!
My comrade!
steamers steaming through my poems!
, My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs
my bare-stript heart, And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.
my Soul!
We closed with him—the yards entangled—the cannon touched, My captain lashed fast with his own hands.
I laughed content when I heard the voice of my little captain, We have not struck, he composedly cried
O longings for my dear home! O soft and sunny airs! O pensive!
O my Soul! O lips becoming tremulous, powerless! O centuries, centuries yet ahead!
myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated, I reject none, accept all, reproduce all in my
Have you studied out MY LAND, its idioms and men?
What is this you bring my America? Is it uniform with my country?
Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, nobility, meanness—to appear again in my strength, gait
own Soul or defiled my body, I have claimed nothing to myself which I have not carefully claimed for
untrodden and mouldy—I see no longer any axe upon it, I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my
I do not vaunt my love for you, I have what I have. The axe leaps!
response, Take what I have then, (saying fain,) take the pay you approached for, Take the white tears of my
COME closer to me, Push closer, my lovers, and take the best I possess, Yield closer and closer, and
Neither a servant nor a master am I, I take no sooner a large price than a small price— I will have my
become so for your sake, If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I cannot remember my
are, I am this day just as much in love with them as you, Then I am in love with you, and with all my
friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women
New Orleans, San Francisco, The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan; Evening—me in my
room—the setting sun, The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing me flies, suspended,
, futurity, In space, the sporades, the scattered islands, the stars —on the firm earth, the lands, my
less in myself than the whole of the Manna- hatta Mannahatta in itself, Singing the song of These, my
ever united lands —my body no more inevitably united, part to part, and made one identity, any more
and let one line of my poems contradict another! Let the people sprawl with yearning aimless hands!
Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!
WITH antecedents, With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages, With all which, had
In the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Past, And in the name of These States, and
in your and my name, the Present time.
SPLENDOR of falling day, floating and filling me, Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past, Inflating my
Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness, Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, Natural life of me, faithfully
To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose- colored flesh, To be conscious of my body, so amorous
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around! How the clouds pass silently overhead!
sailed down the Mississippi, As I wandered over the prairies, As I have lived—As I have looked through my
sake, Of departing—of the growth of a mightier race than any yet, Of myself, soon, perhaps, closing up my
all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my
woods, or of any farm- life of These States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada, Me, wherever my
Then my realities, What else is so real as mine?
done and gone, we remain, There is no final reliance but upon us, Democracy rests finally upon us, (I, my
Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those slender winrows, Chaff, straw
Bent to the very earth, here preceding what follows, Oppressed with myself that I have dared to open my
I take what is underfoot; What is yours is mine, my father.
I throw myself upon your breast, my father, I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me, I hold you
from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last! See—the prismatic colors, glistening and rolling!)
I am de- termined determined to press my way toward you, Sound your voice!
And I stood before the young man face to face, and took his right hand in my left hand, and his left
hand in my right hand, And I answered for his brother, and for men, and I answered for THE POET, and
to the President at his levee, And he says, Good-day, my brother!
Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic, And the soldiers suppose him to be a captain, and the sailors
the still woods I loved, I will not go now on the pastures to walk, I will not strip the clothes from my
body to meet my lover the sea, I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me
I do not see any of it upon you to-day—or perhaps I am deceived, I will run a furrow with my plough—I
will press my spade through the sod, and turn it up un- derneath underneath , I am sure I shall expose
transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so amorous after me, That it is safe to allow it to lick my
ALL day I have walked the city, and talked with my friends, and thought of prudence, Of time, space,
do not doubt there is more in myself than I have supposed—and more in all men and women— and more in my
and which are my miracles?
Realism is mine—my miracles—Take freely, Take without end—I offer them to you wherever your feet can
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight
any one I love—or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, Or sit at the table at dinner with my
perfect old man, or the perfect old woman, Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial, Or my
beget superb children, To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home among common people, And to hold my
Let me have my own way, Let others promulge the laws—I will make no ac- count account of the laws, Let
charged against me, half as bad as the evil I really am; I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my
friends, but listen to my enemies—as I my- self myself do; I charge you, too, forever, reject those
WHO learns my lesson complete?
as every one is immortal, I know it is wonderful—but my eye-sight is equally wonderful, and how I was
conceived in my moth- er's mother's womb is equally wonderful; And how I was not palpable once, but
And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we af- fect affect each other without ever seeing each other
distinctly I comprehend no better sphere than this earth, I comprehend no better life than the life of my
I do not know what follows the death of my body, But I know well that whatever it is, it is best for
I am not uneasy but I shall have good housing to myself, But this is my first—how can I like the rest
face the same, But this is the nipple of a breast of my mother, always near and always divine to me,
— and that the experience of this earth will prove only one out of myriads; But I believe my body and
Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chained with iron, or my ankles with iron?
, Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of the woman, can come the poems of man—only thence have my
arrive, or passed on farther than those of the earth, I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore my
good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my
arm and half enclose with my hand, That contains the start of each and all—the virtue, the germs of
No—it has not yet fully risen ;) Whether I shall complete what is here started, Whether I shall attain my
WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleased with the sound of my own name?
tell why it affects me so much, when I hear it from women's voices, and from men's voices, or from my
take from my lips this kiss, Whoever you are, I give it especially to you; So long—and I hope we shall
O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! Such sights and sounds!
change of the light and shade, I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them, as my
see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, Do not weep for me, This is not my
race, I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race, I see ranks, colors, barbarisms
My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole earth, I have looked for equals
My children and grand-children—my white hair and beard, My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long
stretch of my life.
is my mind!
O the real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh; O my body, done with materials—my
O to have my life henceforth my poem of joys!
Loud I call to you my love!
am, my love.
Hither, my love! Here I am! Here!
O what is my destination? O I fear it is henceforth chaos!
steadily up to my ears, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death.
Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creased and cadaverous march?
I saw the face of the most smeared and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum, And I knew for my consolation
what they knew not, And I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother, The same wait to clear
she blushingly cries—Come nigh to me, limber-hipp'd man, and give me your finger and thumb, Stand at my
upon you, Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my
daughters, sons, preluding, The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, Curious, here behold my
wide sweep, having brought me again, Amorous, mature—all beautiful to me—all won- drous wondrous , My
wondrous; Existing, I peer and penetrate still, Content with the present—content with the past, By my
I were nothing, From what I am determined to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men, From my
The oath of the inseparableness of two together—of the woman that loves me, and whom I love more than my
, (To talk to the perfect girl who understands me—the girl of The States, To waft to her these from my
own lips—to effuse them from my own body;) From privacy—From frequent repinings alone, From plenty of
the right person not near, From the soft sliding of hands over me, and thrusting of fingers through my
O MY children! O mates!
beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my
As I see my Soul reflected in nature, As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible com- pleteness
O my body!
likes of the Soul, (and that they are the Soul,) I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my
It is I, you women—I make my way, I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable—but I love you, I do not hurt
babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn, I shall demand perfect men and women out of my
SPONTANEOUS me, Nature, The loving day, the friend I am happy with, The arm of my friend hanging idly
over my shoulder, The hill-side whitened with blossoms of the mountain ash, The same, late in autumn—the
pressed and glued together with love, Earth of chaste love—life that is only life after love, The body of my
and trembling encircling fingers—the young man all colored, red, ashamed, angry; The souse upon me of my
greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to fill my