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Excerpts from "Song of Myself"
by Walt Whitman

1

I celebrate myself;

And what I assume you shall assume;

For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my Soul;

I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

  

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes—the shelves are crowded with perfumes;

I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it;

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

  

The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it is odorless;

It is for my mouth forever—I am in love with it;

I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

  

2

 

The smoke of my own breath;

Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine;

My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs;

The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn;

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice, words loos’d to the eddies of the wind;

A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms;

The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag;

The delight alone, or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides;

The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.

  

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?

Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

  

Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns left;)

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in  books;

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me:

You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself.
  

5

I believe in you, my Soul—the other I am must not abase itself to you;

And you must not be abased to the other.
  

Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat;

Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the best;

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

  

I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning;

How you settled your head athwart my hips, and gently turn’d over upon me,

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,

And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.

  

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth;

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own;

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers;

And that a kelson of the creation is love;

And limitless are leaves, stiff or drooping in the fields;

And brown ants in the little wells beneath them;

And mossy scabs of the worm fence, and heap’d stones, elder, mullen and poke-weed.

  

6

 

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he.

  

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

  

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer, designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say, Whose?

  

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

  

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic;

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white;

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

  

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

  

Tenderly will I use you, curling grass;

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men;

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;

It may be you are from old people, and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps;

And here you are the mothers’ laps.

  

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers;

Darker than the colorless beards of old men;

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

  

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

  

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

  

What do you think has become of the young and old men?

And what do you think has become of the women and children?

  

They are alive and well somewhere;

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death;

And if ever there was, it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,

And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

  

All goes onward and outward—nothing collapses;

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

  

7

 

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her, it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

  

I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots;

And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good;

The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

  

I am not an earth, nor an adjunct of an earth;

I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself;

(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

  

Every kind for itself and its own—for me mine, male and female;

For me those that have been boys, and that love women;

For me the man that is proud, and feels how it stings to be slighted;

For me the sweet-heart and the old maid—for me mothers, and the mothers of mothers;

For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears;

For me children, and the begetters of children.

  

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale, nor discarded;

I see through the broadcloth and gingham, whether or no;

And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.

   

8

 

The little one sleeps in its cradle;

I lift the gauze, and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.

  

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill;

I peeringly view them from the top.

  

The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bed-room;

I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair—I note where the pistol has fallen.

  

The blab of the pave, the tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the promenaders;

The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor;

The snow-sleighs, the clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snowballs;

The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs;

The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside, borne to the hospital;

The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall;

The excited crowd, the policeman with his star, quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd;

The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes;

What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sun-struck, or in fits;

What exclamations of women taken suddenly, who hurry home and give birth to babes;

What living and buried speech is always vibrating here—what howls restrain’d by decorum;

Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances, rejections with convex lips;

I mind them or the show or resonance of them—I come, and I depart.

  

10

 

Alone, far in the wilds and mountains, I hunt,

Wandering, amazed at my own lightness and glee;

In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,

Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill’d game;

Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves, with my dog and gun by my side.

  

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails—she cuts the sparkle and scud;

My eyes settle the land—I bend at her prow, or shout joyously from the deck.

  

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me;

I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots, and went and had a good time:

(You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.)

  

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west—the bride was a red girl;

Her father and his friends sat near, cross-legged and dumbly smoking—they had moccasins to their feet, and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders;

On a bank lounged the trapper—he was drest mostly in skins—his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck—he held his bride by the hand;

She had long eyelashes—her head was bare—her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.

  

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside;

I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile;

Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,

And went where he sat on a log, and led him in and assured him,

And brought water, and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d feet,

And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,

And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,

And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;

He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north;

(I had him sit next me at table—my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.)

  

11

  

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore;

Twenty-eight young men, and all so friendly:

Twenty-eight years of womanly life, and all so lonesome.

  

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank;

She hides, handsome and richly drest, aft the blinds of the window.

  

Which of the young men does she like the best?

Ah, the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

  

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you;

You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

  

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather;

The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

  

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair:

Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.

  

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies;

It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

  

The young men float on their backs—their white bellies bulge to the sun—they do not ask who seizes fast to them;

They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch;

They do not think whom they souse with spray.

  

12


The butcher-boy puts off his killing clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market;

I loiter, enjoying his repartee, and his shuffle and break-down.

  

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil;

Each has his main-sledge—they are all out—(there is a great heat in the fire.)

  

From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements;

The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms;

Over-hand the hammers swing—over-hand so slow—over-hand so sure:

They do not hasten—each man hits in his place.

   

15

 

The pure contralto sings in the organ loft;

The carpenter dresses his plank—the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp;

The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner;

The pilot seizes the king-pin—he heaves down with a strong arm;

The mate stands braced in the whale-boat—lance and harpoon are ready;

The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches;

The deacons are ordain’d with cross’d hands at the altar;

The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel;

The farmer stops by the bars, as he walks on a First-day loafe, and looks at the oats and rye;

The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum, a confirm’d case,

(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother’s bed-room;)

The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,

He turns his quid of tobacco, while his eyes blurr with the manuscript;

The malform’d limbs are tied to the surgeon’s table,

What is removed drops horribly in a pail;

The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand—the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove;

The machinist rolls up his sleeves—the policeman travels his beat—the gate-keeper marks who pass;

The young fellow drives the express-wagon—(I love him, though I do not know him;)

The half-breed straps on his light boots to complete in the race;

The western turkey-shooting draws old and young—some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs,

Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;

The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee;

As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle;

The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other;

The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof’d garret, and harks to the musical rain;

The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron;

The squaw, wrapt in her yellow-hemm’d cloth, is offering moccasins and bead-bags for sale;

The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent sideways;

As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat, the plank is thrown for the shore-going passengers;

The young sister holds out the skein, while the elder sister winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots;

The one-year wife is recovering and happy, having a week ago borne her first child;

The clean-hair’d Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine, or in the factory or mill;

The nine months’ gone is in the parturition chamber, her faintness and pains are advancing;

The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer—the reporter’s lead flies swiftly over the note-book—the sign-painter is lettering with red and gold;

The canal boy trots on the tow-path—the book-keeper counts at his desk—the shoemaker waxes his thread;

The conductor beats time for the band, and all the performers follow him;

The child is baptized—the convert is making his first professions;

The regatta is spread on the bay—the race is begun—how the white sails sparkle!

The drover, watching his drove, sings out to them that would stray;

The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser higgling about the odd cent;)

The camera and plate are prepared, the lady must sit for her daguerreotype;

The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly;

The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open’d lips;

The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck;

The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other;

(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths, nor jeer you;)

The President, holding a cabinet council, is surrounded by the Great Secretaries;

On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms;

The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold;

The Missourian crosses the plains, toting his wares and his cattle;

As the fare-collector goes through the train, he gives notice by the jingling of loose change;

The floor-men are laying the floor—the tinners are tinning the roof—the masons are calling for mortar;

In single file, each shouldering his hod, pass onward the laborers;

Seasons pursuing each other, the indescribable crowd is gather’d—it is the Fourth of Seventh-month—(What salutes of cannon and small arms!)

Seasons pursuing each other, the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground;

Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen surface;

The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his axe;

Flatboatmen make fast, towards dusk, near the cottonwood or pekan-trees;

Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river, or through those drain’d by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansaw;

Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahoochee or Altamahaw;

Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons around them;

In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their day’s sport;

The city sleeps, and the country sleeps;

The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time;

The old husband sleeps by his wife, and the young husband sleeps by his wife;

And these one and all tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them;

And such as it is to be of these, more or less, I am.

21

I am the poet of the Body;

And I am the poet of the Soul.

  

The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me;

The first I graft and increase upon myself—the latter I translate into a new tongue.

  

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man;

And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man;

And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

  

I chant the chant of dilation or pride;

We have had ducking and deprecating about enough;

I show that size is only development.

  

Have you outstript the rest? Are you the President?

It is a trifle—they will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass on.

  

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;

I call to the earth and sea, half-held by the night.

  

Press close, bare-bosom’d night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing night!

Night of south winds! night of the large few stars!

Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night.

  

Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath’d earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees;

Earth of departed sunset! earth of the mountains, misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue!

Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my sake!

Far-swooping elbow’d earth! rich, apple-blossom’d earth!

Smile, for your lover comes!

  

Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!

O unspeakable, passionate love!

  

24

 

Walt Whitman am I, a Kosmos, of mighty Manhattan the son,

Turbulent, fleshy and sensual, eating, drinking and breeding;

No sentimentalist—no stander above men and women, or apart from them;

No more modest than immodest.

  

Unscrew the locks from the doors!

Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

  

Whoever degrades another degrades me;

And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.

  

Through me the afflatus surging and surging—through me the current and index.

  

I speak the pass-word primeval—I give the sign of democracy;

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.

  

Through me many long dumb voices;

Voices of the interminable generations of slaves;

Voices of prostitutes, and of deform’d persons;

Voices of the diseas’d and despairing, and of thieves and dwarfs;

Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,

And of the threads that connect the stars—and of wombs, and of the father-stuff,

And of the rights of them the others are down upon;

Of the trivial, flat, foolish, despised,

Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.

  

Through me forbidden voices;

Voice of sexes and lusts—voices veil’d, and I remove the veil;

Voices indecent, by me clarified and transfigur’d.

  

I do not press my fingers across my mouth;

I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart;

Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.

  

I believe in the flesh and the appetites;

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

  

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from;

The scent of these arm-pits, aroma finer than prayer;

This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

  

If I worship one thing more than another, it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it.

  

Translucent mould of me, it shall be you!

Shaded ledges and rests, it shall be you!

Firm masculine colter, it shall be you.

  

Whatever goes to the tilth of me, it shall be you!

You my rich blood! Your milky stream, pale strippings of my life.

  

Breast that presses against other breasts, it shall be you!

My brain, it shall be your occult convolutions.

  

Root of wash’d sweet flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded duplicate eggs! it shall be you!

Mix’d tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!

Trickling sap of maple! fibre of manly wheat! it shall be you!

  

Sun so generous, it shall be you!

Vapors lighting and shading my face, it shall be you!

You sweaty brooks and dews, it shall be you!

Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me, it shall be you!

Broad, muscular fields! branches of live oak! loving lounger in my winding paths! it shall be you!

Hands I have taken—face I have kiss’d—mortal I have ever touch’d! it shall be you.

  

I dote on myself—there is that lot of me, and all so luscious;

Each moment, and whatever happens, thrills me with joy.

  

O I am wonderful!

I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish;

Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again.

  

That I walk up my stoop! I pause to consider if it really be;

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

  

To behold the day-break!

The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows;

The air tastes good to my palate.

  

Hefts of the moving world, at innocent gambols, silently rising, freshly exuding,

Scooting obliquely high and low.

  

Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs;

Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.

  

The earth by the sky staid with—the daily close of their junction;

The heav’d challenge from the east that moment over my head;

The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!

  

26

 

I think I will do nothing now but listen,

To accrue what I hear into myself—to let sounds contribute toward me.

  

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals;

I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice;

I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following;

  

Sounds of the city, and sounds out of the city—sounds of the day and night;

Talkative young ones to those that like them—the loud laugh of work-people at their meals;

The angry base of disjointed friendship—the faint tones of the sick;

The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing a death-sentence;

The heave’e’yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves—the refrain of the anchor-lifters;

The ring of alarm-bells—the cry of fire—the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts, with premonitory tinkles, and color’d lights;

The steam-whistle—the solid roll of the train of approaching cars;

The slow-march play’d at the head of the association, marching two and two,

(They go to guard some corpse—the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)

  

I hear the violoncello (’tis the young man’s heart’s complaint;)

I hear the key’d cornet—it glides quickly in through my ears;

It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.

  

I hear the chorus—it is a grand opera;

Ah, this indeed is music! This suits me.

  

A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me;

The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.

  

I hear the train’d soprano—(what work, with hers, is this?)

The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies;

It wrenches such ardors from me, I did not know I possess’d them;

It sails me—I dab with bare feet—they are lick’d by the indolent waves;

I am exposed, cut by bitter and angry hail—I lose my breath,

Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death;

At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,

And that we call BEING.

  

27

To be, in any form—what is that?

(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither;)

If nothing lay more develop’d, the quahaug in its callous shell were enough.

  

Mine is no callous shell;

I have instant conductors all over me, whether I pass or stop;

They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.

  

I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy;

To touch my person to some one else’s is about as much as I can stand.

  

 

31

 

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,

And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,

And the tree-toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for the highest,

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,

And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,

And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,

And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,

And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer’s girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking shortcake.

  

32

 

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d;

I stand and look at them long and long.

  

They do not sweat and whine about their condition;

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;

Not one is dissatisfied—not one is demented with the mania of owning things;

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago;

Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.

  

37

O Christ! This is mastering me!

In at the conquer’d doors they crowd. I am possess’d.

  

I embody all presences outlaw’d or suffering;

See myself in prison shaped like another man,

And feel the dull unintermitted pain.

  

For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch;

It is I let out in the morning, and barr’d at night.

  

Not a mutineer walks handcuff’d to jail, but I am handcuff’d to him and walk by his side;

(I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one, with sweat on my twitching lips.)

  

Not a youngster is taken for larceny, but I go up too, and am tried and sentenced.

  

Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp, but I also lie at the last gasp;

My face is ash-color’d—my sinews gnarl—away from me people retreat.

  

Askers embody themselves in me, and I am embodied in them;

I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg.

  

46

   

I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured, and never will be measured.

  

I tramp a perpetual journey—(come listen all!)

My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods;

No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair;

I have no chair, no church, no philosophy;

I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, or exchange;

But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,

My left hand hooking you round the waist,

My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents, and a plain public road.

  

Not I—not any one else, can travel that road for you,

You must travel it for yourself.

  

It is not far—it is within reach;

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know;

Perhaps it is every where on water and on land.

  

Shoulder your duds, dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,

Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.

  

If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,

And in due time you shall repay the same service to me;

For after we start, we never lie by again.

  

This day before dawn I ascended a hill, and look’d at the crowded heaven,

And I said to my Spirit, When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be fill’d and satisfied then?

And my Spirit said, No, we but level that life, to pass and continue beyond.

  

You are also asking me questions, and I hear you;

I answer that I cannot answer—you must find out for yourself.

  

Sit a while, dear son;

Here are biscuits to eat, and here is milk to drink;

But as soon as you sleep, and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-bye kiss, and open the gate for your egress hence.

  

Long enough have you dream’d contemptible dreams;

Now I wash the gum from your eyes;

You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light, and of every moment of your life.

  

Long have you timidly waded, holding a plank by the shore;

Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,

To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.

  

  

48

I have said that the soul is not more than the body,

And I have said that the body is not more than the soul;

And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy, walks to his own funeral, drest in his shroud,

And I or you, pocketless of a dime, may purchase the pick of the earth,

And to glance with an eye, or show a bean in its pod, confounds the learning of all times,

And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,

And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,

And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

  

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,

For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God;

(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God, and about death.)

  

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

  

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then;

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;

I find letters from God dropt in the street—and every one is sign’d by God’s name,

And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,

Others will punctually come forever and ever.

  

  

52

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me—he complains of my gab and my loitering.

  

I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable;

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

  

The last scud of day holds back for me;

It flings my likeness after the rest, and true as any, on the shadow’d wilds;

It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

  

I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the runaway sun;

I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

  

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;

If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

  

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean;

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood.

  

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;

Missing me one place, search another;

I stop somewhere, waiting for you.