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<h2> BOOK IV. CHILDREN OF ADAM </h2>
<p>To the Garden the World</p>
<p>To the garden the world anew ascending,<br/>
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,<br/>
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,<br/>
Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber,<br/>
The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again,<br/>
Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous,<br/>
My limbs and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for<br/>
reasons, most wondrous,<br/>
Existing I peer and penetrate still,<br/>
Content with the present, content with the past,<br/>
By my side or back of me Eve following,<br/>
Or in front, and I following her just the same.<br/></p>
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<h2> From Pent-Up Aching Rivers </h2>
<p>From pent-up aching rivers,<br/>
From that of myself without which I were nothing,<br/>
From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole<br/>
among men,<br/>
From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus,<br/>
Singing the song of procreation,<br/>
Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people,<br/>
Singing the muscular urge and the blending,<br/>
Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!<br/>
O for any and each the body correlative attracting!<br/>
O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than all<br/>
else, you delighting!)<br/>
From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,<br/>
From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them,<br/>
Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it<br/>
many a long year,<br/>
Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random,<br/>
Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals,<br/>
Of that, of them and what goes with them my poems informing,<br/>
Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds,<br/>
Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves,<br/>
Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting,<br/>
The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating,<br/>
The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body,<br/>
The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back<br/>
lying and floating,<br/>
The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching,<br/>
The divine list for myself or you or for any one making,<br/>
The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it arouses,<br/>
The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandonment,<br/>
(Hark close and still what I now whisper to you,<br/>
I love you, O you entirely possess me,<br/>
O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and lawless,<br/>
Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more<br/>
lawless than we;)<br/>
The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling.<br/>
The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that<br/>
loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath swearing,<br/>
(O I willingly stake all for you,<br/>
O let me be lost if it must be so!<br/>
O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?<br/>
What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust<br/>
each other if it must be so;)<br/>
From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to,<br/>
The general commanding me, commanding all, from him permission taking,<br/>
From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter'd too long as it is,)<br/>
From sex, from the warp and from the woof,<br/>
From privacy, from frequent repinings alone,<br/>
From plenty of persons near and yet the right person not near,<br/>
From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers<br/>
through my hair and beard,<br/>
From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom,<br/>
From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting<br/>
with excess,<br/>
From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood,<br/>
From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow's embrace in<br/>
the night,<br/>
From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,<br/>
From the cling of the trembling arm,<br/>
From the bending curve and the clinch,<br/>
From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing,<br/>
From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling<br/>
to leave,<br/>
(Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,)<br/>
From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,<br/>
From the night a moment I emerging flitting out,<br/>
Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for,<br/>
And you stalwart loins.<br/></p>
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<h2> I Sing the Body Electric </h2>
<p>1<br/>
I sing the body electric,<br/>
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,<br/>
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,<br/>
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.<br/>
<br/>
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?<br/>
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?<br/>
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?<br/>
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?<br/>
<br/>
2<br/>
The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself<br/>
balks account,<br/>
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.<br/>
<br/>
The expression of the face balks account,<br/>
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,<br/>
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of<br/>
his hips and wrists,<br/>
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist<br/>
and knees, dress does not hide him,<br/>
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,<br/>
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,<br/>
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.<br/>
<br/>
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the<br/>
folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the<br/>
contour of their shape downwards,<br/>
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through<br/>
the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls<br/>
silently to and from the heave of the water,<br/>
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the<br/>
horse-man in his saddle,<br/>
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,<br/>
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open<br/>
dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,<br/>
The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or<br/>
cow-yard,<br/>
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six<br/>
horses through the crowd,<br/>
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,<br/>
good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,<br/>
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,<br/>
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;<br/>
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine<br/>
muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,<br/>
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes<br/>
suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,<br/>
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd<br/>
neck and the counting;<br/>
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's<br/>
breast with the little child,<br/>
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with<br/>
the firemen, and pause, listen, count.<br/>
<br/>
3<br/>
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,<br/>
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.<br/>
<br/>
This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,<br/>
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and<br/>
beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness<br/>
and breadth of his manners,<br/>
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,<br/>
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were<br/>
massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,<br/>
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,<br/>
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,<br/>
He drank water only, the blood show'd like scarlet through the<br/>
clear-brown skin of his face,<br/>
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat himself, he<br/>
had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had<br/>
fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,<br/>
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,<br/>
you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,<br/>
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit<br/>
by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.<br/>
<br/>
4<br/>
I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough,<br/>
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,<br/>
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,<br/>
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly<br/>
round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?<br/>
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.<br/>
<br/>
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking<br/>
on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,<br/>
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.<br/>
<br/>
5<br/>
This is the female form,<br/>
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,<br/>
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,<br/>
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,<br/>
all falls aside but myself and it,<br/>
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what<br/>
was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,<br/>
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response<br/>
likewise ungovernable,<br/>
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all<br/>
diffused, mine too diffused,<br/>
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling<br/>
and deliciously aching,<br/>
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of<br/>
love, white-blow and delirious nice,<br/>
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,<br/>
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,<br/>
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.<br/>
<br/>
This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,<br/>
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the<br/>
outlet again.<br/>
<br/>
Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the<br/>
exit of the rest,<br/>
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.<br/>
<br/>
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,<br/>
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,<br/>
She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,<br/>
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.<br/>
<br/>
As I see my soul reflected in Nature,<br/>
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,<br/>
sanity, beauty,<br/>
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.<br/>
<br/>
6<br/>
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,<br/>
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,<br/>
The flush of the known universe is in him,<br/>
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,<br/>
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is<br/>
utmost become him well, pride is for him,<br/>
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,<br/>
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to<br/>
the test of himself,<br/>
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes<br/>
soundings at last only here,<br/>
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)<br/>
<br/>
The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred,<br/>
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the<br/>
laborers' gang?<br/>
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?<br/>
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as<br/>
much as you,<br/>
Each has his or her place in the procession.<br/>
<br/>
(All is a procession,<br/>
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)<br/>
<br/>
Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?<br/>
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has<br/>
no right to a sight?<br/>
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and<br/>
the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,<br/>
For you only, and not for him and her?<br/>
<br/>
7<br/>
A man's body at auction,<br/>
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)<br/>
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.<br/>
<br/>
Gentlemen look on this wonder,<br/>
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,<br/>
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one<br/>
animal or plant,<br/>
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd.<br/>
<br/>
In this head the all-baffling brain,<br/>
In it and below it the makings of heroes.<br/>
<br/>
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in<br/>
tendon and nerve,<br/>
They shall be stript that you may see them.<br/>
<br/>
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,<br/>
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,<br/>
good-sized arms and legs,<br/>
And wonders within there yet.<br/>
<br/>
Within there runs blood,<br/>
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!<br/>
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires,<br/>
reachings, aspirations,<br/>
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in<br/>
parlors and lecture-rooms?)<br/>
<br/>
This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be<br/>
fathers in their turns,<br/>
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,<br/>
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.<br/>
<br/>
How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring<br/>
through the centuries?<br/>
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace<br/>
back through the centuries?)<br/>
<br/>
8<br/>
A woman's body at auction,<br/>
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,<br/>
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.<br/>
<br/>
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?<br/>
Have you ever loved the body of a man?<br/>
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations<br/>
and times all over the earth?<br/>
<br/>
If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,<br/>
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,<br/>
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more<br/>
beautiful than the most beautiful face.<br/>
<br/>
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool<br/>
that corrupted her own live body?<br/>
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.<br/>
<br/>
9<br/>
O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and<br/>
women, nor the likes of the parts of you,<br/>
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of<br/>
the soul, (and that they are the soul,)<br/>
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and<br/>
that they are my poems,<br/>
Man's, woman's, child, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's,<br/>
father's, young man's, young woman's poems,<br/>
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,<br/>
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or<br/>
sleeping of the lids,<br/>
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,<br/>
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,<br/>
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,<br/>
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the<br/>
ample side-round of the chest,<br/>
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,<br/>
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,<br/>
finger-joints, finger-nails,<br/>
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,<br/>
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,<br/>
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round,<br/>
man-balls, man-root,<br/>
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,<br/>
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,<br/>
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;<br/>
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your<br/>
body or of any one's body, male or female,<br/>
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,<br/>
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,<br/>
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,<br/>
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,<br/>
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,<br/>
love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,<br/>
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,<br/>
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,<br/>
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,<br/>
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,<br/>
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,<br/>
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked<br/>
meat of the body,<br/>
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,<br/>
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward<br/>
toward the knees,<br/>
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the<br/>
marrow in the bones,<br/>
The exquisite realization of health;<br/>
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,<br/>
O I say now these are the soul!<br/></p>
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<h2> A Woman Waits for Me </h2>
<p>A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking,<br/>
Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the<br/>
right man were lacking.<br/>
<br/>
Sex contains all, bodies, souls,<br/>
Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,<br/>
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,<br/>
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves,<br/>
beauties, delights of the earth,<br/>
All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth,<br/>
These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself.<br/>
<br/>
Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex,<br/>
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.<br/>
<br/>
Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,<br/>
I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that<br/>
are warm-blooded and sufficient for me,<br/>
I see that they understand me and do not deny me,<br/>
I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of<br/>
those women.<br/>
<br/>
They are not one jot less than I am,<br/>
They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,<br/>
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,<br/>
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike,<br/>
retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,<br/>
They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear,<br/>
well-possess'd of themselves.<br/>
<br/>
I draw you close to me, you women,<br/>
I cannot let you go, I would do you good,<br/>
I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for<br/>
others' sakes,<br/>
Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards,<br/>
They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.<br/>
<br/>
It is I, you women, I make my way,<br/>
I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you,<br/>
I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,<br/>
I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States, I<br/>
press with slow rude muscle,<br/>
I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,<br/>
I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me.<br/>
<br/>
Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,<br/>
In you I wrap a thousand onward years,<br/>
On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,<br/>
The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls,<br/>
new artists, musicians, and singers,<br/>
The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,<br/>
I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,<br/>
I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you<br/>
inter-penetrate now,<br/>
I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I<br/>
count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,<br/>
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death,<br/>
immortality, I plant so lovingly now.<br/></p>
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<h2> Spontaneous Me </h2>
<p>Spontaneous me, Nature,<br/>
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,<br/>
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,<br/>
The hillside whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,<br/>
The same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and<br/>
light and dark green,<br/>
The rich coverlet of the grass, animals and birds, the private<br/>
untrimm'd bank, the primitive apples, the pebble-stones,<br/>
Beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after<br/>
another as I happen to call them to me or think of them,<br/>
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)<br/>
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,<br/>
This poem drooping shy and unseen that I always carry, and that all<br/>
men carry,<br/>
(Know once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like me, are<br/>
our lusty lurking masculine poems,)<br/>
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers,<br/>
and the climbing sap,<br/>
Arms and hands of love, lips of love, phallic thumb of love, breasts<br/>
of love, bellies press'd and glued together with love,<br/>
Earth of chaste love, life that is only life after love,<br/>
The body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body of the<br/>
man, the body of the earth,<br/>
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,<br/>
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, that gripes the<br/>
full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes<br/>
his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is<br/>
satisfied;<br/>
The wet of woods through the early hours,<br/>
Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with<br/>
an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other,<br/>
The smell of apples, aromas from crush'd sage-plant, mint, birch-bark,<br/>
The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what<br/>
he was dreaming,<br/>
The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl and falling still and<br/>
content to the ground,<br/>
The no-form'd stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,<br/>
The hubb'd sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any<br/>
one,<br/>
The sensitive, orbic, underlapp'd brothers, that only privileged<br/>
feelers may be intimate where they are,<br/>
The curious roamer the hand roaming all over the body, the bashful<br/>
withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and<br/>
edge themselves,<br/>
The limpid liquid within the young man,<br/>
The vex'd corrosion so pensive and so painful,<br/>
The torment, the irritable tide that will not be at rest,<br/>
The like of the same I feel, the like of the same in others,<br/>
The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that<br/>
flushes and flushes,<br/>
The young man that wakes deep at night, the hot hand seeking to<br/>
repress what would master him,<br/>
The mystic amorous night, the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,<br/>
The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers,<br/>
the young man all color'd, red, ashamed, angry;<br/>
The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,<br/>
The merriment of the twin babes that crawl over the grass in the<br/>
sun, the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from them,<br/>
The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen'd<br/>
long-round walnuts,<br/>
The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,<br/>
The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent,<br/>
while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent,<br/>
The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,<br/>
The oath of procreation I have sworn, my Adamic and fresh daughters,<br/>
The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate<br/>
what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through,<br/>
The wholesome relief, repose, content,<br/>
And this bunch pluck'd at random from myself,<br/>
It has done its work—I toss it carelessly to fall where it may.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"></SPAN></p>
<h2> One Hour to Madness and Joy </h2>
<p>One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!<br/>
(What is this that frees me so in storms?<br/>
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)<br/>
O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!<br/>
O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,<br/>
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)<br/>
<br/>
O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me<br/>
in defiance of the world!<br/>
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!<br/>
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of<br/>
a determin'd man.<br/>
<br/>
O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all<br/>
untied and illumin'd!<br/>
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!<br/>
To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and<br/>
you from yours!<br/>
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!<br/>
To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!<br/>
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.<br/>
<br/>
O something unprov'd! something in a trance!<br/>
To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!<br/>
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!<br/>
To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!<br/>
To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!<br/>
To rise thither with my inebriate soul!<br/>
To be lost if it must be so!<br/>
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!<br/>
With one brief hour of madness and joy.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd </h2>
<p>Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,<br/>
Whispering I love you, before long I die,<br/>
I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you,<br/>
For I could not die till I once look'd on you,<br/>
For I fear'd I might afterward lose you.<br/>
<br/>
Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe,<br/>
Return in peace to the ocean my love,<br/>
I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated,<br/>
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!<br/>
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,<br/>
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever;<br/>
Be not impatient—a little space—know you I salute the air, the<br/>
ocean and the land,<br/>
Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals </h2>
<p>Ages and ages returning at intervals,<br/>
Undestroy'd, wandering immortal,<br/>
Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet,<br/>
I, chanter of Adamic songs,<br/>
Through the new garden the West, the great cities calling,<br/>
Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself,<br/>
Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex,<br/>
Offspring of my loins.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"></SPAN></p>
<h2> We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd </h2>
<p>We two, how long we were fool'd,<br/>
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,<br/>
We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,<br/>
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,<br/>
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,<br/>
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,<br/>
We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,<br/>
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,<br/>
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings<br/>
and evenings,<br/>
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,<br/>
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,<br/>
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic<br/>
and stellar, we are as two comets,<br/>
We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,<br/>
We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,<br/>
We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling<br/>
over each other and interwetting each other,<br/>
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,<br/>
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence<br/>
of the globe,<br/>
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two,<br/>
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"></SPAN></p>
<h2> O Hymen! O Hymenee! </h2>
<p>O hymen! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus?<br/>
O why sting me for a swift moment only?<br/>
Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?<br/>
Is it because if you continued beyond the swift moment you would<br/>
soon certainly kill me?<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"></SPAN></p>
<h2> I Am He That Aches with Love </h2>
<p>I am he that aches with amorous love;<br/>
Does the earth gravitate? does not all matter, aching, attract all matter?<br/>
So the body of me to all I meet or know.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Native Moments </h2>
<p>Native moments—when you come upon me—ah you are here now,<br/>
Give me now libidinous joys only,<br/>
Give me the drench of my passions, give me life coarse and rank,<br/>
To-day I go consort with Nature's darlings, to-night too,<br/>
I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight<br/>
orgies of young men,<br/>
I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers,<br/>
The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I pick out some low person<br/>
for my dearest friend,<br/>
He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be one condemn'd by<br/>
others for deeds done,<br/>
I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?<br/>
O you shunn'd persons, I at least do not shun you,<br/>
I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet,<br/>
I will be more to you than to any of the rest.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City </h2>
<p>Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future<br/>
use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,<br/>
Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met<br/>
there who detain'd me for love of me,<br/>
Day by day and night by night we were together—all else has long<br/>
been forgotten by me,<br/>
I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me,<br/>
Again we wander, we love, we separate again,<br/>
Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,<br/>
I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"></SPAN></p>
<h2> I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ </h2>
<p>I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday morn I<br/>
pass'd the church,<br/>
Winds of autumn, as I walk'd the woods at dusk I heard your long-<br/>
stretch'd sighs up above so mournful,<br/>
I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard the<br/>
soprano in the midst of the quartet singing;<br/>
Heart of my love! you too I heard murmuring low through one of the<br/>
wrists around my head,<br/>
Heard the pulse of you when all was still ringing little bells last<br/>
night under my ear.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Facing West from California's Shores </h2>
<p>Facing west from California's shores,<br/>
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,<br/>
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity,<br/>
the land of migrations, look afar,<br/>
Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;<br/>
For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,<br/>
From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,<br/>
From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands,<br/>
Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd,<br/>
Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous,<br/>
(But where is what I started for so long ago?<br/>
And why is it yet unfound?)<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"></SPAN></p>
<h2> As Adam Early in the Morning </h2>
<p>As Adam early in the morning,<br/>
Walking forth from the bower refresh'd with sleep,<br/>
Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,<br/>
Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,<br/>
Be not afraid of my body.<br/></p>
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