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1. BOOK IV. CHILDREN OF ADAM
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1.1. To the Garden the World
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To the garden the world anew ascending,
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Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
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The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
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Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber,
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The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again,
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Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous,
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My limbs and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for
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reasons, most wondrous,
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Existing I peer and penetrate still,
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Content with the present, content with the past,
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By my side or back of me Eve following,
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Or in front, and I following her just the same.
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1.2. From Pent-Up Aching Rivers
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From pent-up aching rivers,
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From that of myself without which I were nothing,
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From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole
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among men,
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From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus,
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Singing the song of procreation,
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Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people,
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Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
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Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!
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O for any and each the body correlative attracting!
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O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than all
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else, you delighting!)
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From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,
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From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them,
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Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it
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many a long year,
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Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random,
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Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals,
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Of that, of them and what goes with them my poems informing,
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Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds,
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Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves,
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Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting,
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The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating,
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The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body,
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The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back
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lying and floating,
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The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching,
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The divine list for myself or you or for any one making,
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The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it arouses,
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The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandonment,
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(Hark close and still what I now whisper to you,
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I love you, O you entirely possess me,
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O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and lawless,
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Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more
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lawless than we;)
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The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling.
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The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that
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loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath swearing,
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(O I willingly stake all for you,
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O let me be lost if it must be so!
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O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?
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What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust
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each other if it must be so;)
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From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to,
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The general commanding me, commanding all, from him permission taking,
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From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter'd too long as it is,)
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From sex, from the warp and from the woof,
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From privacy, from frequent repinings alone,
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From plenty of persons near and yet the right person not near,
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From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers
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through my hair and beard,
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From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom,
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From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting
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with excess,
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From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood,
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From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow's embrace in
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the night,
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From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,
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From the cling of the trembling arm,
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From the bending curve and the clinch,
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From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing,
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From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling
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to leave,
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(Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,)
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From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,
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From the night a moment I emerging flitting out,
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Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for,
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And you stalwart loins.
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1.3. I Sing the Body Electric
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I sing the body electric,
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The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
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They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
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And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
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Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
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And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
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And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
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And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
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The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
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balks account,
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That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
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The expression of the face balks account,
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But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
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It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
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his hips and wrists,
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It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
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and knees, dress does not hide him,
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The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
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To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
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You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
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The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
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folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
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contour of their shape downwards,
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The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
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the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
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silently to and from the heave of the water,
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The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
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horse-man in his saddle,
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Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
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The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open
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dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
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The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or
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cow-yard,
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The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
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horses through the crowd,
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The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
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good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,
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The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
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The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
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The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
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muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
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The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
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suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
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The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd
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neck and the counting;
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Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's
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breast with the little child,
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Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
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the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
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I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
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And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
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This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
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The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and
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beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
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and breadth of his manners,
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These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
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He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were
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massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
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They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
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They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
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He drank water only, the blood show'd like scarlet through the
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clear-brown skin of his face,
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He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat himself, he
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had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
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fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
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When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
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you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
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You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
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by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
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I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough,
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To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
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To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
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To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
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round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
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I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
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There is something in staying close to men and women and looking
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on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
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All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
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This is the female form,
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A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
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It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
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I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
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all falls aside but myself and it,
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Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
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was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
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Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
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likewise ungovernable,
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Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
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diffused, mine too diffused,
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Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
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and deliciously aching,
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Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
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love, white-blow and delirious nice,
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Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
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Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
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Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.
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This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
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This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
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outlet again.
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Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
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exit of the rest,
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You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
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The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
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She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
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She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,
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She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
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As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
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As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
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sanity, beauty,
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See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
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The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
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He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
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The flush of the known universe is in him,
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Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
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The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
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utmost become him well, pride is for him,
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The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
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Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to
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the test of himself,
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Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
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soundings at last only here,
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(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)
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The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred,
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No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the
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laborers' gang?
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Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
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Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
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much as you,
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Each has his or her place in the procession.
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(All is a procession,
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The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)
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Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
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Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
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no right to a sight?
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Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
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the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
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For you only, and not for him and her?
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7
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A man's body at auction,
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(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
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I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
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Gentlemen look on this wonder,
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Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
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For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one
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animal or plant,
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For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd.
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In this head the all-baffling brain,
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In it and below it the makings of heroes.
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Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in
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tendon and nerve,
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They shall be stript that you may see them.
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Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
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Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,
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good-sized arms and legs,
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And wonders within there yet.
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Within there runs blood,
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The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
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There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires,
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reachings, aspirations,
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(Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in
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parlors and lecture-rooms?)
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167
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This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be
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168
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fathers in their turns,
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169
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In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
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170
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Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
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171
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How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
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172
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through the centuries?
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173
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(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
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174
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back through the centuries?)
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175
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8
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176
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A woman's body at auction,
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177
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She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
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178
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She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
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179
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Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
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180
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Have you ever loved the body of a man?
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181
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Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations
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182
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and times all over the earth?
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183
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If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
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184
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And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
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185
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And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more
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186
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beautiful than the most beautiful face.
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187
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Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
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188
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that corrupted her own live body?
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189
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For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
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190
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9
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191
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O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and
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192
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women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
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193
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I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of
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194
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the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
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195
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I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
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196
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that they are my poems,
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197
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Man's, woman's, child, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's,
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198
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father's, young man's, young woman's poems,
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199
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Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
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200
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Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
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201
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sleeping of the lids,
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202
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Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
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203
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Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
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204
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Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
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205
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Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
|
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206
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ample side-round of the chest,
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207
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Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
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208
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Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
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209
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finger-joints, finger-nails,
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210
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Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
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211
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Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
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212
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Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round,
|
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213
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man-balls, man-root,
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214
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Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
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215
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Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
|
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216
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|
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Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
|
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217
|
|
|
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your
|
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218
|
|
|
body or of any one's body, male or female,
|
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219
|
|
|
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
|
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220
|
|
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The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
|
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221
|
|
|
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
|
|
222
|
|
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Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
|
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223
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|
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The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
|
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224
|
|
|
love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
|
|
225
|
|
|
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
|
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226
|
|
|
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
|
|
227
|
|
|
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
|
|
228
|
|
|
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
|
|
229
|
|
|
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
|
|
230
|
|
|
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
|
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231
|
|
|
meat of the body,
|
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232
|
|
|
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
|
|
233
|
|
|
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
|
|
234
|
|
|
toward the knees,
|
|
235
|
|
|
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
|
|
236
|
|
|
marrow in the bones,
|
|
237
|
|
|
The exquisite realization of health;
|
|
238
|
|
|
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
|
|
239
|
|
|
O I say now these are the soul!
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.4. A Woman Waits for Me
|
|
0
|
|
|
A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the
|
|
2
|
|
|
right man were lacking.
|
| |
|
3
|
|
|
Sex contains all, bodies, souls,
|
|
4
|
|
|
Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,
|
|
6
|
|
|
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves,
|
|
7
|
|
|
beauties, delights of the earth,
|
|
8
|
|
|
All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth,
|
|
9
|
|
|
These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself.
|
| |
|
10
|
|
|
Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex,
|
|
11
|
|
|
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.
|
| |
|
12
|
|
|
Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
|
|
13
|
|
|
I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that
|
|
14
|
|
|
are warm-blooded and sufficient for me,
|
|
15
|
|
|
I see that they understand me and do not deny me,
|
|
16
|
|
|
I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of
|
|
17
|
|
|
those women.
|
| |
|
18
|
|
|
They are not one jot less than I am,
|
|
19
|
|
|
They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
|
|
20
|
|
|
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
|
|
21
|
|
|
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike,
|
|
22
|
|
|
retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
|
|
23
|
|
|
They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear,
|
|
24
|
|
|
well-possess'd of themselves.
|
| |
|
25
|
|
|
I draw you close to me, you women,
|
|
26
|
|
|
I cannot let you go, I would do you good,
|
|
27
|
|
|
I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for
|
|
28
|
|
|
others' sakes,
|
|
29
|
|
|
Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
|
|
30
|
|
|
They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.
|
| |
|
31
|
|
|
It is I, you women, I make my way,
|
|
32
|
|
|
I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you,
|
|
33
|
|
|
I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,
|
|
34
|
|
|
I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States, I
|
|
35
|
|
|
press with slow rude muscle,
|
|
36
|
|
|
I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,
|
|
37
|
|
|
I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me.
|
| |
|
38
|
|
|
Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,
|
|
39
|
|
|
In you I wrap a thousand onward years,
|
|
40
|
|
|
On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,
|
|
41
|
|
|
The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls,
|
|
42
|
|
|
new artists, musicians, and singers,
|
|
43
|
|
|
The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,
|
|
44
|
|
|
I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,
|
|
45
|
|
|
I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you
|
|
46
|
|
|
inter-penetrate now,
|
|
47
|
|
|
I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I
|
|
48
|
|
|
count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,
|
|
49
|
|
|
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death,
|
|
50
|
|
|
immortality, I plant so lovingly now.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.5. Spontaneous Me
|
|
0
|
|
|
Spontaneous me, Nature,
|
|
1
|
|
|
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
|
|
2
|
|
|
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
|
|
3
|
|
|
The hillside whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,
|
|
4
|
|
|
The same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and
|
|
5
|
|
|
light and dark green,
|
|
6
|
|
|
The rich coverlet of the grass, animals and birds, the private
|
|
7
|
|
|
untrimm'd bank, the primitive apples, the pebble-stones,
|
|
8
|
|
|
Beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after
|
|
9
|
|
|
another as I happen to call them to me or think of them,
|
|
10
|
|
|
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
|
|
11
|
|
|
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
|
|
12
|
|
|
This poem drooping shy and unseen that I always carry, and that all
|
|
13
|
|
|
men carry,
|
|
14
|
|
|
(Know once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like me, are
|
|
15
|
|
|
our lusty lurking masculine poems,)
|
|
16
|
|
|
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers,
|
|
17
|
|
|
and the climbing sap,
|
|
18
|
|
|
Arms and hands of love, lips of love, phallic thumb of love, breasts
|
|
19
|
|
|
of love, bellies press'd and glued together with love,
|
|
20
|
|
|
Earth of chaste love, life that is only life after love,
|
|
21
|
|
|
The body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body of the
|
|
22
|
|
|
man, the body of the earth,
|
|
23
|
|
|
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,
|
|
24
|
|
|
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, that gripes the
|
|
25
|
|
|
full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes
|
|
26
|
|
|
his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is
|
|
27
|
|
|
satisfied;
|
|
28
|
|
|
The wet of woods through the early hours,
|
|
29
|
|
|
Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with
|
|
30
|
|
|
an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other,
|
|
31
|
|
|
The smell of apples, aromas from crush'd sage-plant, mint, birch-bark,
|
|
32
|
|
|
The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what
|
|
33
|
|
|
he was dreaming,
|
|
34
|
|
|
The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl and falling still and
|
|
35
|
|
|
content to the ground,
|
|
36
|
|
|
The no-form'd stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,
|
|
37
|
|
|
The hubb'd sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any
|
|
38
|
|
|
one,
|
|
39
|
|
|
The sensitive, orbic, underlapp'd brothers, that only privileged
|
|
40
|
|
|
feelers may be intimate where they are,
|
|
41
|
|
|
The curious roamer the hand roaming all over the body, the bashful
|
|
42
|
|
|
withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and
|
|
43
|
|
|
edge themselves,
|
|
44
|
|
|
The limpid liquid within the young man,
|
|
45
|
|
|
The vex'd corrosion so pensive and so painful,
|
|
46
|
|
|
The torment, the irritable tide that will not be at rest,
|
|
47
|
|
|
The like of the same I feel, the like of the same in others,
|
|
48
|
|
|
The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that
|
|
49
|
|
|
flushes and flushes,
|
|
50
|
|
|
The young man that wakes deep at night, the hot hand seeking to
|
|
51
|
|
|
repress what would master him,
|
|
52
|
|
|
The mystic amorous night, the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,
|
|
53
|
|
|
The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers,
|
|
54
|
|
|
the young man all color'd, red, ashamed, angry;
|
|
55
|
|
|
The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,
|
|
56
|
|
|
The merriment of the twin babes that crawl over the grass in the
|
|
57
|
|
|
sun, the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from them,
|
|
58
|
|
|
The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen'd
|
|
59
|
|
|
long-round walnuts,
|
|
60
|
|
|
The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,
|
|
61
|
|
|
The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent,
|
|
62
|
|
|
while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent,
|
|
63
|
|
|
The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,
|
|
64
|
|
|
The oath of procreation I have sworn, my Adamic and fresh daughters,
|
|
65
|
|
|
The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate
|
|
66
|
|
|
what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through,
|
|
67
|
|
|
The wholesome relief, repose, content,
|
|
68
|
|
|
And this bunch pluck'd at random from myself,
|
|
69
|
|
|
It has done its work—I toss it carelessly to fall where it may.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.6. One Hour to Madness and Joy
|
|
0
|
|
|
One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!
|
|
1
|
|
|
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
|
|
2
|
|
|
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
|
|
3
|
|
|
O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
|
|
4
|
|
|
O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,
|
|
5
|
|
|
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)
|
| |
|
6
|
|
|
O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me
|
|
7
|
|
|
in defiance of the world!
|
|
8
|
|
|
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
|
|
9
|
|
|
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of
|
|
10
|
|
|
a determin'd man.
|
| |
|
11
|
|
|
O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all
|
|
12
|
|
|
untied and illumin'd!
|
|
13
|
|
|
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
|
|
14
|
|
|
To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and
|
|
15
|
|
|
you from yours!
|
|
16
|
|
|
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!
|
|
17
|
|
|
To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
|
|
18
|
|
|
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.
|
| |
|
19
|
|
|
O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
|
|
20
|
|
|
To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
|
|
21
|
|
|
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
|
|
22
|
|
|
To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!
|
|
23
|
|
|
To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
|
|
24
|
|
|
To rise thither with my inebriate soul!
|
|
25
|
|
|
To be lost if it must be so!
|
|
26
|
|
|
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
|
|
27
|
|
|
With one brief hour of madness and joy.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.7. Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
|
|
0
|
|
|
Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Whispering I love you, before long I die,
|
|
2
|
|
|
I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
|
|
3
|
|
|
For I could not die till I once look'd on you,
|
|
4
|
|
|
For I fear'd I might afterward lose you.
|
| |
|
5
|
|
|
Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe,
|
|
6
|
|
|
Return in peace to the ocean my love,
|
|
7
|
|
|
I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated,
|
|
8
|
|
|
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!
|
|
9
|
|
|
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
|
|
10
|
|
|
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever;
|
|
11
|
|
|
Be not impatient—a little space—know you I salute the air, the
|
|
12
|
|
|
ocean and the land,
|
|
13
|
|
|
Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.8. Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals
|
|
0
|
|
|
Ages and ages returning at intervals,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Undestroy'd, wandering immortal,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet,
|
|
3
|
|
|
I, chanter of Adamic songs,
|
|
4
|
|
|
Through the new garden the West, the great cities calling,
|
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5
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Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself,
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Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex,
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Offspring of my loins.
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1.9. We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd
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We two, how long we were fool'd,
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Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,
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We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,
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We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,
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4
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We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,
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5
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We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,
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We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,
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We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
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We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings
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and evenings,
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10
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We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,
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11
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We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,
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12
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We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic
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13
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and stellar, we are as two comets,
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14
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We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,
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15
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We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,
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We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling
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over each other and interwetting each other,
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We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,
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19
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We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence
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of the globe,
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21
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We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two,
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22
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We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.
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1.10. O Hymen! O Hymenee!
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0
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O hymen! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus?
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1
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O why sting me for a swift moment only?
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2
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Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?
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Is it because if you continued beyond the swift moment you would
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4
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soon certainly kill me?
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1.11. I Am He That Aches with Love
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0
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I am he that aches with amorous love;
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1
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Does the earth gravitate? does not all matter, aching, attract all matter?
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2
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So the body of me to all I meet or know.
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1.12. Native Moments
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0
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Native moments—when you come upon me—ah you are here now,
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1
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Give me now libidinous joys only,
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2
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Give me the drench of my passions, give me life coarse and rank,
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3
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To-day I go consort with Nature's darlings, to-night too,
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I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight
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orgies of young men,
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6
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I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers,
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7
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The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I pick out some low person
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8
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for my dearest friend,
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9
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He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be one condemn'd by
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10
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others for deeds done,
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11
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I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?
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12
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O you shunn'd persons, I at least do not shun you,
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13
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I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet,
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14
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I will be more to you than to any of the rest.
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1.13. Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City
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0
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Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future
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1
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use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,
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2
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Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met
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3
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there who detain'd me for love of me,
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4
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Day by day and night by night we were together—all else has long
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5
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been forgotten by me,
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6
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I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me,
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7
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Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
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8
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Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,
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9
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I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.
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1.14. I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ
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0
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I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday morn I
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1
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pass'd the church,
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2
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Winds of autumn, as I walk'd the woods at dusk I heard your long-
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3
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stretch'd sighs up above so mournful,
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4
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I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard the
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5
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soprano in the midst of the quartet singing;
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6
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Heart of my love! you too I heard murmuring low through one of the
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7
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wrists around my head,
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8
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Heard the pulse of you when all was still ringing little bells last
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9
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night under my ear.
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1.15. Facing West from California's Shores
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0
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Facing west from California's shores,
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1
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Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
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2
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I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity,
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3
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the land of migrations, look afar,
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4
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Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;
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5
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For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
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6
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From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,
|
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7
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From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands,
|
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8
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Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd,
|
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9
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Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous,
|
|
10
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(But where is what I started for so long ago?
|
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11
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And why is it yet unfound?)
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1.16. As Adam Early in the Morning
|
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0
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As Adam early in the morning,
|
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1
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Walking forth from the bower refresh'd with sleep,
|
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2
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Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,
|
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3
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Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
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