Leaves of Grass

"To the garden the world anew ascending, Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding, The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber, The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again, Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous…"

"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…"

"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;)"

"I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul. (1)"

"The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account, That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect. (2)"

"There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well, All things please the soul, but these please the soul well. (4)"

"The female contains all qualities and tempers them, She is in her place and moves with perfect balance, She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active, She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters. (5)"

"The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place, He too is all qualities, he is action and power, The flush of the known universe is in him…(6)"

"The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred, No matter who it is, it is sacred… (6)"

"All is a procession, The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion. (6)"

"Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant? Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight? Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts, For you only, and not for him and her? (6)"

"A man's body at auction, (For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,) I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business. (7)"

"Gentlemen look on this wonder, Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it, For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant, For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd. In this head the all-baffling brain, In it and below it the makings of heroes. (7)"

"This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns, In him the start of populous states and rich republics, Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments. How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries? (Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?) (7)"

"A woman's body at auction, She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers, She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers. (8)"

"Have you ever loved the body of a woman? Have you ever loved the body of a man? Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth? (8)"

"If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred, And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted, And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face. (8)"

"Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body? For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves. (8)"

"O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you, I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,) I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems… (9)"

"O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul!"

"A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking."

"Sex contains all, bodies, souls, Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk, All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth, These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself."

"Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex, Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers."

"I draw you close to me, you women, I cannot let you go, I would do you good, I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others' sakes, Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards, They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me."

"I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me."

"I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now."

"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…"

"What is this that frees me so in storms? What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?"

"O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man! O savage and tender achings!"

"O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me in defiance of the world!"

"O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last! To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and you from yours! To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature! To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth! To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am."

"To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds! To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous! To court destruction with taunts, with invitations! To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!"

"To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom! With one brief hour of madness and joy."

"I love you, before long I die, I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you, For I could not die till I once look'd on you, For I fear'd I might afterward lose you."

"We two, how long we were fool'd, Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes, We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return…"

"I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions? O you shunn'd persons, I at least do not shun you, I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest."

"Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions, Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain'd me for love of me…"

"Where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?"

"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."

"Escaped from the life that exhibits itself, From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures, profits, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed my soul, Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that my soul, That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades…"

"O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or inhale your faint odor, but I believe a few will..."

"Whoever you are holding me now in hand, Without one thing all will be useless, I give you fair warning before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different."

"These leaves conning you con at peril, For these leaves and me you will not understand, They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will certainly elude you. Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold! Already you see I have escaped from you."

"I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not,"

"Though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not."

"Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,"

"I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you."

"This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone, It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful…"

"I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions, But really I am neither for nor against institutions, (What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?) Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these States inland and seaboard, And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water, Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument, The institution of the dear love of comrades."

"I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth, I dream'd that was the new city of Friends, Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest, It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, And in all their looks and words."