Leaves of Grass

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,

O Me! O Life!
O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the
struggle ever renew'd,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

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

Not asking the sky to come down to my good will

Always the procreant urge of the world.

atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,

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

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is

the unseen is proved by the seen

beautiful uncut hair of graves

Thy body permanent,

The body lurking there within thy body,

Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts,
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,
The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the
briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,
The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,
And this is ocean's poem.

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?

Have you ever loved the body of a man?

Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations

and times all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,

Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?

Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has

no right to a sight?

Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and

the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,

For you only, and not for him and her?

Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as

much as you,

Each has his or her place in the procession.

Distant and dead resuscitate,
They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock myself.

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

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!

will accept nothing which all cannot have their
counterpart of on the same terms.