| Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, | |
| Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, | |
| No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, | |
| No more modest than immodest. | |
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| Unscrew the locks from the doors! | 5 |
| Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! | |
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| 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. | 10 |
| |
| 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. | |
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| Through me many long dumb voices, | |
| Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves, | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, | |
| Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung. | |
| |
| Through me forbidden voices, | |
| Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil, | |
| Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd. | 25 |
| |
| 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 | 30 |
| 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. | 35 |
| |
| 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! | 40 |
| 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 | 45 |
| 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! | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| 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, | |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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! | 65 |
| 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. | 70 |
| |
| Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs, | |
| Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven. | |
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| 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! | 75 |