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.
3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the
talk of the beginning and the end;
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is
now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is
now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Urge, and urge, and urge;
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance—always
substance and increase, always sex;
Always a knit of identity—always distinction—always
a breed of life.
To elaborate is no avail—learn’d and unlearn’d feel
that it is so.
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the
uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty,
electrical,
I and this mystery, here we stand.
Clear and sweet is my Soul, and clear and sweet is
all that is not my Soul.
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by
the seen,
Till that becomes unseen, and receives proof in its
turn.
Showing the best, and dividing it from the worst,
age vexes age;
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of
things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of
any man hearty and clean;
Not an inch, nor a particle of an inch, is vile,
and none shall be less familiar than the rest.
I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing:
As the hugging and loving Bed-fellow sleeps at my
side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day, with stealthy
tread,
Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels,
swelling the house with their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization,
and scream at my eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me a cent,
Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the
contents of two, and which is ahead?
4
Trippers and askers surround me;
People I meet—the effect upon me of my early life,
or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions,
societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments,
dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or
woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks, or of myself, or
ill-doing, or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations;
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever
of doubtful news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights, and go from me
again,
But they are not the Me myself.
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I
am;
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle,
unitary;
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an
impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head, curious what will
come next;
Both in and out of the game, and watching and
wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated
through fog with linguists and contenders;
I have no mockings or arguments—I witness and wait.
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.
(...)
Walt Whitman