Walt Whitman - The Complete Works of Walt Whitman

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?

And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

2

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself

balks account,

That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,

But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,

It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of

his hips and wrists,

It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist

and knees, dress does not hide him,

The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,

To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,

You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the

folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the

contour of their shape downwards,

The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through

the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls

silently to and from the heave of the water,

The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the

horse-man in his saddle,

Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,

The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open

dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,

The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or

cow-yard,

The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six

horses through the crowd,

The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,

good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,

The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,

The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;

The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine

muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,

The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes

suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,

The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d

neck and the counting;

Such-like I love — I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s

breast with the little child,

Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with

the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

3

I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,

And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.

This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,

The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and

beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness

and breadth of his manners,

These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,

He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were

massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,

They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,

They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,

He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the

clear-brown skin of his face,

He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he

had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had

fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,

When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,

you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,

You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit

by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

4

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,

To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly

round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?

I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women and looking

on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,

All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

5

This is the female form,

A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,

It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,

I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,

all falls aside but myself and it,

Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what

was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,

Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response

likewise ungovernable,

Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all

diffused, mine too diffused,

Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling

and deliciously aching,

Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of

love, white-blow and delirious nice,

Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,

Undulating into the willing and yielding day,

Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

This the nucleus — after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,

This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the

outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the

exit of the rest,

You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and tempers them,

She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,

She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,

She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,

As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,

sanity, beauty,

See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

6

The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,

He too is all qualities, he is action and power,

The flush of the known universe is in him,

Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,

The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is

utmost become him well, pride is for him,

The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,

Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to

the test of himself,

Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes

soundings at last only here,

(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)

The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,

No matter who it is, it is sacred — is it the meanest one in the

laborers’ gang?

Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?

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.

(All is a procession,

The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)

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