Part 6 (1/2)

This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair, This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning, This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face, This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?

Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.

Do you take it I would astonish?

Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering through the woods?

Do I astonish more than they?

This hour I tell things in confidence, I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

20 Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude; How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?

What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own, Else it were time lost listening to me.

I do not snivel that snivel the world over, That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.

Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity goes to the fourth-remov'd, I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.

Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?

Having pried through the strata, a.n.a.lyzed to a hair, counsel'd with doctors and calculated close, I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less, And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

I know I am solid and sound, To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow, All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

I know I am deathless, I know this...o...b..t of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compa.s.s, I know I shall not pa.s.s like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.

I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize, (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.)

I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.

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 h.e.l.l are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into 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 pa.s.s 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 nouris.h.i.+ng night!

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

Still nodding night-mad naked summer night.