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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

What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)

(I bequeath them to you, my children, I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

(Know, I am a man, attracting, at any time, her I but look upon, or touch with the tips of my fingers

, Or that touches my face, or leans against me.)

To rise thither with my inebriate Soul! To be lost, if it must be so!

Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life coarse and rank!

dancers, and drink with the drink- ers drinkers , The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I take for my

love some prostitute—I pick out some low person for my dearest friend, He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate—he

one condemned by others for deeds done; I will play a part no longer—Why should I exile myself from my

ONCE I passed through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its shows, architec-

over waves, toward the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar, Look off the shores of my

Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, Bathing myself, bathing my

songs in sex, Offspring of my loins.

EARLY in the morning, Walking forth from the bower, refreshed with sleep, Behold me where I pass—hear my

voice—approach, Touch me—touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, Be not afraid of my body.

You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me, the sun-light expands my blood?

Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?

It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well. Allons! Be not detained!

I give you my hand!

shame or the need of shame. 28* Air, soil, water, fire, these are words, I myself am a word with them—my

qualities inter- penetrate interpenetrate with theirs—my name is nothing to them, Though it were told

in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?

When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot, My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath

hitherto published—from the pleasures, profits, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed to my

Soul Clear to me now, standards not yet published— clear to me that my Soul, That the Soul of the man

substantial life, Bequeathing, hence, types of athletic love, 29* Afternoon, this delicious Ninth Month, in my

forty- first year, I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men, To tell the secret of my nights

SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves

O blossoms of my blood!

O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers—I think it must be for Death, For

Grow up out of my breast! Spring away from the concealed heart there!

Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!

Who is he that would become my follower?

Who would sign himself a candidate for my affec- tions affections ? Are you he?

doned abandoned ; Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my

it, Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me, Nor will the candidates for my

love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious, Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just

and then in the silence, Alone I had thought—yet soon a silent troop gathers around me, Some walk by my

side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck, They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive—thicker

lilac, with a branch of pine, Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live-oak in Florida

There shall from me be a new friendship—It shall be called after my name, It shall circulate through

other shall be invincible, They shall finally make America completely victo- rious victorious , in my

NOT heaving from my ribbed breast only, Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself, Not

in those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs, Not in many an oath and promise broken, Not in my wilful

savage soul's volition, Not in the subtle nourishment of the air, Not in this beating and pounding at my

sleep, Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day, Nor in the limbs and senses of my

O pulse of my life! Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs.

aught of them;) May-be they only seem to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but seem,) as from my

from entirely changed points of view; To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my

lovers, my dear friends; When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me by the

appearances, or that of identity beyond the grave, But I walk or sit indifferent—I am satisfied, He ahold of my

Then my lands engrossed me—Lands of the prairies, Ohio's land, the southern savannas, engrossed me—For

to enclose all, it came to me to strike up the songs of the New World—And then I be- lieved believed my

knowledge, and the grandeur of The States, and the example of heroes, no more, I am indifferent to my

heavy-hearted, Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my

face in my hands; Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country

(I am ashamed—but it is useless—I am what I am;) Hours of my torment—I wonder if other men ever have

when you refer to me, mind not so much my poems, Nor speak of me that I prophesied of The States, and

I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to say of me: Publish my

name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom

WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capitol, still

it was not a happy night for me that fol- lowed followed ; And else, when I caroused, or when my plans

ing undressing , bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise, And when I thought how my

all that day my food nourished me more—And the beautiful day passed well, And the next came with equal

joy—And with the next, at evening, came my friend; And that night, while all was still, I heard the

down-balls, nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds, are borne through the open air, Any more than my

, from me falling—drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prisoned, From my

face—from my forehead and lips, From my breast—from within where I was con- cealed concealed —Press

May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life, Or may-be a stranger is reading

this who has secretly loved me, Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision

in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied, And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my

CITY of my walks and joys!

nor the bright win- dows windows , with goods in them, Nor to converse with learned persons, or bear my

your fre- quent frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love, Offering me the response of my own—these

Behold this swarthy and unrefined face—these gray eyes, This beard—the white wool, unclipt upon my neck

, My brown hands, and the silent manner of me, with- out without charm; Yet comes one, a Manhattanese

leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight in my

room, It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little

or a girl with me, I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my

body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard,

it seems to me if I could know those men better, I should become attached to them, as I do to men in my

own lands, It seems to me they are as wise, beautiful, benevolent, as any in my own lands; O I know

WHAT think you I take my pen in hand to record?

my likeness!

PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love, O bride ! O wife !

Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born, The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation

, I ascend—I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving life.

is certain, one way or another, Doubtless I could not have perceived the universe, or written one of my

THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seek- ing seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering

it where it flits, How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; But in these, and among my

lovers, and carolling my songs, O I never doubt whether that is really me.