by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
FROM pent-up aching rivers,
From that of myself without which I were nothing,
From what I am determin'd to make illustrious,
even if I stand sole among men,
From my own voice
resonant, singing the phallus,
Singing the song of procreation,
Singing the need of superb children and therein superb
grown people,
Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless
yearning! O for any and each the
body correlative attracting!
O for you whoever you are your correlative
body! O it, more than all else, you
delighting!)
From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,
From native moments, from bashful pains,
singing them, Seeking something yet
unfound though I have diligently
sought it many a long year,
Singing the true song of the soul fitful at
random, Renascent with grossest Nature or
among animals, Of that, of them and what goes with them my poems informing,
Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds,
Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves,
Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land,
I them chanting, The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating,
The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body,
The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back lying and floating, The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching,
The divine list for myself or you or for any one making,
The face, the limbs, the index from
head to foot, and what it arouses,
The mystic deliria, the
madness amorous, the utter abandonment,
(Hark close and still what I now
whisper to you, I love you, O you entirely possess me,
O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and lawless,
Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more lawless than we;)
The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling.
The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath swearing,
(O I willingly stake all for you, O
let me be lost if it must be so!
O you and I! what is it to us what the rest
do or think? What is all else to us? only that we
enjoy each other and exhaust each other if it must be so;)
From the master, the pilot I yield the
vessel to, The general commanding me,
commanding all, from him permission
taking, From time the programme
hastening, (I have loiter'd too long as it
is,) From sex, from the warp and from the woof,
From privacy, from frequent repinings alone,
From plenty of persons near and yet the right
person not near, From the soft
sliding of hands over me and thrusting of
fingers through my hair and beard,
From the long sustain'd kiss upon the
mouth or bosom, From the close
pressure that makes me or any man drunk,
fainting with excess, From what
the divine husband knows, from the work of
fatherhood, From exultation,
victory and relief, from the bedfellow's
embrace in the night, From the
act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,
From the cling of the trembling
arm, From the bending curve and the
clinch, From side by side the
pliant coverlet off-throwing,
From the one so unwilling to have me
leave, and me just as unwilling to leave,
(Yet a moment O tender waiter,
and I return,) From the hour of shining stars and
dropping dews, From the night a moment I emerging flitting out,
Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for,
And you stalwart loins.
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