 Book four of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This Liberfox recording is in the public domain. Recording by phone. Book four, Children of Adam. To the Garden of the World. To the Garden of the World, a new ascending, potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding the love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being. Curious, here behold my resurrection after slumber. The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again. Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous. My limbs and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons most wondrous. Existing, I peer and penetrate still. Content with the present, content with the past, by my side or back of me, Eve following, or in front and I following her, just the same. From pent up aching rivers. From pent up aching rivers, from that of myself without which I were nothing. From what I am determined to make illustrious, even if I stand soul among men. From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus, singing the song of procreation, singing the need of superb children and their in superb grown people. Singing the muscular urge and the blending. Singing the bedfellow song over zistless yearning. Oh, for any and each the body correlative attracting. Oh, for you, whoever you are, your correlative body. Oh, it, more than all else, you delighting. From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day. From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them. Seeking something yet unfound, though I have diligently sorted many a long year. Singing the true song of the soul, fitful at random. Renaissance with grossest nature, or among animals. Of that, of them, and what goes with them, my poems informing. Of the smell of apples and lemons. Of the pairing of birds. Of the wet of woods. Of the lapping of waves. Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land. I them chanting. The overture lightly sounding. The strain anticipating. The welcome nearness. The sight of the perfect body. The swimmer swimming naked in the bath. Or motionless on his back, lying and floating. The female form approaching. Eye-pensive, love-flesh, tremulous aching. The divine list for myself, or you, or for anyone making. The face, the limbs, the index, from head to foot, and what it arouses. The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandonment. Hark, close and still, what I now whisper to you. I love you, O you entirely possess me. O that you and I escape from the rest, and go utterly off, free and lawless. Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea, not more lawless than we. A furious storm through me, careering, I passionately trembling. The oath of the inseparable-ness of two together. Of the woman that loves me, and whom I love more than my life. That oath swearing. O, I willingly stake all for you. O, let me be lost, if it must be so. O, you and I, what is it to us, what do rest do or think? What is all else to us, only that we enjoy each other, and exhaust each other, if it must be so? From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to. The general commanding me, commanding all, from him permission taking. From time the program hastening, I have loitered too long as it is. From sex, from the warp, and from the woof. From privacy, from frequent repinings alone. From plenty of persons near, and yet the right person not near. From the soft sliding of hands over me, and thrusting of fingers through my hair and beard. From the long sustained kiss upon the mouth or bosom. From the close pressure that makes me, or any man drunk, fainting with excess. From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood. From exaltation, victory, and relief. From the bedfellows embrace in the night. From the act poems of eyes, hands, hips, and bosoms. From the cling of the trembling arm. From the bending curve, and the clinch. From side by side, the pliant coverlet off-throwing. From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling to leave. Yet a moment, O tender waiter, and I return. From the hour of shining stars, and dropping dews. From the night, a moment, I emerging, flitting out. Celebrate you, act divine, and you children prepared for. And you, stalwart loins. I sing the body electric. One. I sing the body electric. The armies of those I love, engirth me, and I engirth them. They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, 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 defiled the living are as bad as they who defiled the dead? And if the body does not fully as much as the soul, and if the body were not the soul, what is the soul? Two. The love of the body, of man or woman, bulks account. The body itself bulks account. That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect. The expression of the face bulks 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 broad cloth. To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more. You linger to see his back and to the back of his neck and shoulder side. The sprawl and fullness 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 rowboats, the horseman in his saddle. Girls, mothers, housekeepers, in all their performances. The group of laborers seated at noontime 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 slave 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 rumbled over and blinding the eyes. The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trousers 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 curved neck and the counting. Such like I love, I loosen myself, pass freely, I'm at the mother's breast with a little child. Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen and pause, listen, count. 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, vigour, 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 breath 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 showed like scarlet through the clear brown skin of his face. He was a frequent gunner and fisher. He sailed his boat himself. He had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner. He had fouling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him. When he went with his five sons and many grandsons 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. Four. I have perceived 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 anyone 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. Five. 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, divisible and solid earth and what was expected of heaven or feared of hell are now consumed. Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it. Their 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 flush, swelling and deliciously aching. Limitless, limpid jets of love, hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white blow and delirious nice. Bright green 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 flushed day. This is the nucleus. After the child is born of woman, man is born of woman. This is the bath of birth. This is the merge of small and large and the outlet again. Be not ashamed women. Your privilege encloses the rest and it's 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 veiled. 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. Six. 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 everything to the test of himself. Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes, soundings at last only hear. 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 a laborer's 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 the soil is on the surface and water runs and vegetation sprouts for you only and not for him and her seven? A man's body at auction. For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale. I help the auctioneer. This lovin' does not half know his business. Gentlemen, look on this wonder. Whatever the bids of the bidders, they cannot be high enough for it. For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant. For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily rolled. In this head the all baffling brain, in it and below it the making of heroes. Examine these limbs, red, black or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve. They shall be stripped that you may see them. Exquisite senses, lifelet eyes, pluck, volition, flakes of breast muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs, and wonders within there yet. Within there runs blood, the same old blood, the same red running blood. There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations. Do you think they are not there, because they are not expressed in parlours and lecture rooms? This is not only one man, this is the father of those who shall be fathers in their terms. In him the start of popular states and rich republics, of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments. How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries? Who might you find you have come from yourself if you could trace back through the centuries? 8. A woman's body at auction. She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers. She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates through the mothers. 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 anything is sacred, the human body is sacred. And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted. And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm, fibre body is more beautiful than the most beautiful face. Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own life-body, or the fool that corrupted her own life-body? For they do not conceal themselves and cannot conceal themselves. 9. Oh, my body, I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you. I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall, but the likes of the soul, and that they are the soul. I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems. Man's, woman's, child's, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's, father's, young man's, young woman's poems. Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears. Eyes, eye fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids. Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws and jaw hinges. Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition. Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck slew. Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind shoulders, and the ample side round of the chest. Upper arm, armpit, elbow socket, lower arm, arm sinews, arm bones, wrist and wrist joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger joints, fingernails, broad breast front, curling hair of the breast, breast bone, breast side, ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone, hips, hip sockets, hip strength, inward and outward round, man balls, man root, strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above, leg fibres, knee, knee pan, upper leg, under leg, ankles, instep, foot ball, toes, toe joints, the heel. All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body, or of anyone's body, male or female, the lung sponges, the stomach sack, the bowels, sweet and clean, the brain in its folds inside the skull frame, sympathies, heart valves, palate valves, sexuality, maternity, womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman, the womb, the teets, nipples, breast milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love looks, love perturbations and risings, the voice articulation, language whispering, shouting aloud, food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming, poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm curving and tightening, the continual changes of the flex of the mouth and around the eyes, the skin, the sunburned shade, freckles, hair, the curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body, the circling rivers to breath and breathing it in and out, the beauty of the waist and dense of the hips and dense downward toward the knees, the thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones, the exquisite realization of health. Oh, I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul. Oh, I say now these are the soul. A woman waits for me. A woman waits for me. She contains all. Nothing is lacking. Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. Sex contains all, bodies, souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk, all hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, the lights of the earth, all the governments, judges, gods, followed persons of the earth. These are contained in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself. Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex. Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers. Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women. I will go stay with her who waits for me and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me. I see that they understand me and do not deny me. I see that they are worthy of me. I will be the robust husband of those women. They are not one jot less than I am. They are tanned in the face by shining suns and blowing winds. Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength. They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves. They are ultimate in their own right. They are calm, clear, well-possessed of themselves. I draw you close to me, you women. I cannot let you go. I would do you good. I am for you and you are for me. Not only for our own sake but for other's sakes. Enveloped in you sleep greater heroes and barreds. They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me. It is I, you women, I make my way. I am stern, acrid, large, undisoidable, but I love you. I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you. I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these states. I press with slow, rude muscle. I brace myself effectually. I listen to no entreaties. I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me. Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself. In you I wrap a thousand onward years. On you I graft the grafts of the best beloved of me and America. The drops I distill upon you shall grow fears and athletic girls, new artists, musicians and singers. The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their term. I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love spendings. I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others as I and you interpenetrate now. I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now. I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality. I plant so lovingly now, spontaneous me. Spontaneous me, nature, the loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with, the arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder, the hillside whitened with blossoms of the mountain ash, the same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple and light and dark green, the rich coverlet of the grass, animals and birds, the private untrimmed bank, the primitive apples, the pebble stones, beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after another as I happen to call them to me or think of them, the real poems, what we call poems being merely pictures, the poems of the privacy of the night and of men like me, this poem drooping shy and unseen that I always carry, that all men carry. No, once for all, avowed on purpose, wherever our men like me are our lusty, lurking, masculine poems. Love thoughts, love Jews, love odor, love yielding, love climbers and a climbing sap, arms and hands of love, lips of love, phallic thumb of love, breasts of love, bellies pressed and glued together with love, earth of chaste love, life that is only life after love, the body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body of the man, the body of the earth, soft forenoon airs that blow from the south west, the hairy wild bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, that gripes the full-grown lady flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is satisfied. The wet of the woods through the early hours, two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other, the smell of apples, aromas from crushed sage plant, mint, birch bark, the boys' longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what he was dreaming, the dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl and falling still and content to the ground, the no-formed stings that sights, people, objects sting me with, the hugged sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can anyone, the sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers that only privileged feelers may be intimate where they are, the curious romer, the hand roaming all over the body, the bashful withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pulls and edged themselves, the limpid liquid within the young man, the vexed corrosion so pensive and so painful, the torment, the irritable tide that will not be at rest, the like of the same I feel, the like of the same in others, the young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that flushes and flushes, the young man that wakes deep at night, the hot hand seeking to repress what would master him, the mystic amorous night, the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats, the pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers, the young man all-coloured, red, ashamed, angry, the sows upon me of my lover to see as I lie willing and naked, the merriment of the twin babes that crawl over the grass in the sun, the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from them, the walnut trunk, the walnut husks, and the ripening or ripened long-round walnuts, the continents of vegetables, birds, animals, the consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent, the great chastity of paternity to match the great chastity of maternity, the oath of procreation I have sworn, my Adamic and fresh daughters, the greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through, the wholesome relief repose content, and this bunch plucked at random from myself, it has done its work, I toss it carelessly to fall where it may. One hour to madness and joy One hour to madness and joy Oh furious, oh confine me not! What is this that frees me so in storms? What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean? Oh to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man! Oh savage and tender aches, I bequeath them to you, my children, I tell them to you for reasons, oh bridegroom and bride! Oh to be yielded to you, whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me in defiance of the world! Oh to return to paradise, oh bashful and feminine! Oh to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of a determined man! Oh the puzzle, the thrice-tide knot, the deep and dark pool, all untied and illumined! Oh to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last! To be absolved from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and you from yours, to find a new unthought of nonchalance with the best of nature, to have the gag removed from one's mouth, to have the feeling today or any day I am sufficient as I am. Oh something unproved, something in a trance, to escape utterly from others' anchors and holes, to drive free, to love free, to dash reckless and dangerous, to court destruction with taunts, with invitations, to ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me, to rise thither with my inebriate soul, to be lost if it must be so, to feed the remainder of life with one hour of fullness and freedom, with one brief hour of madness and joy, out of the rolling ocean the crowd. Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, whispering I love you, before long I die, I have travelled a long way merely to look on you to touch you, for I could not die till I once looked on you, for I feared I might afterward lose you. Now we have met, we have looked, we are safe, return in peace to the ocean my love. I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated. Behold the great ronjer, the cohesion of all, how perfect, but as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, as for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever. Be not impatient, a little space, know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land, every day at sundown for your dear sake my love. Ages and ages, returning at intervals. Ages and ages, returning at intervals, undestroyed, wandering immortal, lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, I, chanter of Adamic songs, through the new garden, the west, the great cities calling, the lyriot thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, bathing myself, bathing my songs in sex, offspring of my loins. We too, how long we were fooled. We too, how long we were fooled. Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as nature escapes. We are nature, long have we been absent, but now we return. We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark. We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks, we are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side. We browse, we are two among the wild herds, spontaneous as any. We are two fishes swimming in the sea together. We are what locust blossoms are. We drop scent around lanes, mornings and evenings. We are also the coarsed smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals. We are two predatory hawks. We soar above and look down. We are two resplendent suns. We it is who balance ourselves, orbic and stellar. We are as two comets. We prowl, fangt and forefooted in the woods. We spring on prey. We are two clouds, forenoons and afternoons, driving overhead. We are seas mingling. We are two of those cheerful waves, rolling over each other and interwetting each other. We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious. We are snow, rain, cold, darkness. We are each product and influence of the glow. We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again. We too. We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy. Oh hymen, oh hymeni. Oh hymen, oh hymeni, why do you tantalise me thus? Oh, why you sting me for a swift moment only? Why can you not continue? Oh, why do you now cease? Is it because if you continued beyond the swift moment you would soon certainly kill me? I am he that aches with love. Does the earth gravitate? Does not all matter aching attract all matter? So the body of me to all I meet or know. Native moments. Native moments. When you come upon me. Ah, you are here now. Give me now the bitterness joys only. Give me the drench of my passions. Give me love. Give me the drench of my passions. Give me life, course and rank. Today I go consort with nature's darlings. Tonight too. I am for those who believe in loose delights. I share the midnight orgies of young men. I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers. The echoes ring with our indecent coals. I pick out some low person for my dearest friend. He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate. He shall be one condemned by others for deeds done. I will play a part no longer. Why should I exile myself for my companions? Oh, you shunned persons. I at least do not shun you. I come fortwith in your midst. I will be your poet. I will be more to you than to any of the rest. Once I passed through a populous city. Once I passed through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions. Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met there who detained me for love of me. Day by day and night by night we were together. All else has long been forgotten by me. I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me. Again we wander, we love, we separate again. Again she holds me by the hand. I must not go. I see her close beside me with silent lips, sad and tremulous. I heard you solemn sweet pipes of the organ. I heard you solemn sweet pipes of the organ. As last Sunday morn I passed the church. Winds of autumn as I walked the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretched sighs up above so mournful. I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera. I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing. Heart of my love, you too, I heard murmuring low through one of the wrists around my head. Heard the pulse of you when all was still, ringing little bells last night under my ear, facing west from California's shores. Facing west from California's shores, inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound. I, a child, very old, over waves towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar. Look off the shores of my western sea, the circle almost circled, for starting westward from Hindustan, from the veils of Kashmir, from Asia, from the north, from the god, the sage and the hero, from the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands, long having wandered since, round the earth having wandered. Now I face home again, very pleased and joyous. But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound? As Adam early in the morning. As Adam early in the morning, walking forth from the bower, refreshed with sleep, behold me where I pass, hear my voice approach, touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass. Be not afraid of my body. End of book four, recording by phone. Book five of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This Liberfox recording is in the public domain. Recording by phone. Book five, Kalamaz. In parts untrodden. In parts untrodden, in the growth by margins of pond waters, escaped from the life that exhibits itself, from all the standards hitherto published, from the pleasures, profits, conformities, which too long I was offering to feed my soul. Clear to me now, standards not yet published, clear to me that my soul, that the soul of the man I speak for, rejoices in comrades, hear by myself away from the clank of the world, tallying and talk to, hear by tongues aromatic. No longer abashed, for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere. Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest. Resolve to sing no songs today, but those of manly attachment, projecting them along that substantial life, bequeathing hence types of athletic love. Afternoon, this delicious ninth month in my forty first year, I proceed for all who are, or have been, young men, to tell the secret my nights and days, to celebrate the need of comrades, scented herbage of my breast. Scented herbage of my breast, leaves from you I gleam, I write, to be perused best afterwards. Tomb leaves, body leaves, growing up above me, above death. Perennial roots, tall leaves, oh, the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves. Every year shall you bloom again, out from where you retired, you shall emerge again. Oh, I do not know whether many passing by will discover you, or inhale your faint odour, but I believe a few will. Oh, slender leaves, oh blossoms of my blunt, I permit you to tell in your own way of the heart that is under you. Oh, I do not know what you mean there underneath yourselves, you are not happiness, you are often more bitter than I can bear, you burn and sting me. Yet you are beautiful to me, you faint tinged roots, you make me think of death. Death is beautiful from you, what indeed is finally beautiful except death and love. Oh, I think it is not for life, I am chanting here my chant of lovers, I think it must be for death. For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmosphere of lovers. Death or life I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer. I am not sure, but the high soul of lovers welcomes death most. Indeed, oh death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as you mean. Grow up taller, sweet leaves, that I may see. Grow up out of my breast, spring away from the concealed heart there. Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots, timid leaves. Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast. Come, I am determined to unbear this broad breast of mine. I have long enough stifled and choked. Emblematic and capricious blades, I leave you, now you serve me not. I will say what I have to say by itself. I will sound myself and comrades only. I will never again utter a call, only dare call. I will raise it with immortal reverberations through the states. I will give an example through lovers to take permanent shape and will through the states. Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating. Give me your tone, therefore, oh death, that I may accord with it. Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all and are folded inseparably together. You love and deaths are, nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life. For now it is conveyed to me that you are the purports essential, that you hide in these shifting forms of life for reasons and that they are mainly for you. That you beyond them come forth to remain the real reality that behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how long. That you will one day perhaps take control of all. That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance. That maybe you are what it is all for but it does not last so very long but you will last very long whoever you are holding me now in hand. Whoever you are holding me now in hand without one thing all will be useless. I give you fair warning before you attempt me further. I am not with you supposed but far different. Who is he that would become my follower who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive. You would have to give up all else I alone would expect to be your soul and exclusive standard. Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting. The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives around you would have to be abandoned. Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further. Let go your hand from my shoulders. Put me down and depart on your way. Or else by stealth in some wood for trial or back of a rock in the open air. For in any roofed room of a house I emerge not nor in company and in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk or unborn or dead. But just possibly with you on a high hill first watching lest any person for miles around approach unawares. Or possibly with you sailing at sea or on the beach of the sea or some quiet island. Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you with the comrade's long dwelling kiss or the new husband's kiss for I am the new husband and I am the comrade. Or if you will thrusting me beneath your clothing where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip. Carry me when you go forth over land or sea for thus merely touching you is enough is best and thus touching you I silently sleep and be carried eternally. But these leaves conning you con at peril for these leaves and me you will not understand. They will elude you at first and still more afterward I will certainly elude you. Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me behold already you see I have escaped from you for it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book nor is it by reading it you will acquire it nor do those know me best who admire me and hauntingly praise me nor will the candidates for my love most very few prove victorious nor will my poems do good only they will do just as much evil perhaps more for all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit that which I hinted at therefore release me and depart on your way for you oh democracy. Come I will make the continent in the soluble I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shown upon I will make divine magnetic lands with the love of comrades with the lifelong love of comrades I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America and along the shores of the great lakes and all over the prairies I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks by the love of comrades by the manly love of comrades for you these from me oh democracy to serve you matham for you for you I am trilling these songs these I singing in spring these I singing in spring collect for lovers for who but I should understand lovers and all their sorrow and joy and who but I should be the poet of comrades collecting I traverse the garden the world but soon I pass the gates now along the pond side now wading in a little fearing not the wet now by the post and rail fences where the old stones thrown there picked from the fields have accumulated wildflowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones and partly cover them beyond these I pass far far in the forest or sauntering later in summer before I think where I go solitary smelling the earthy smell stopping now and then in the silence alone I have thought yet soon a troop gathers around me some walk by my side and some behind and some embrace my arms or neck they the spirits of dear friends dead or alive thicker they come a great crowd and I in the middle collecting dispensing singing there I wonder with them plucking something for tokens tossing toward whoever is near me here lilac with a branch of pine here out of my pocket some moss which I pulled off a live oak in Florida as it hung trailing down here some pinks and laurel leaves and a handful of sage and here what I now draw from the water wading in the pond side oh here I lost all him that tenderly loves me and returns again never to separate from me and this oh this shall henceforth be the token of comrades this kalamaz root shall interchange it youths with each other let none render it back and twigs of maple and a bunch of wild orange and chestnut and stems of currants and plum blows and the aromatic cedar these I compassed around by a thick cloud of spirits wandering point to or touch as I pass or throw them loosely from me indicating to each one what he shall have giving something to each but what I drew from the water by the pond side that I reserve I will give of it but only to them that love as I myself am capable of loving not heaving for my ribbed breast only not heaving for my ribbed breast only not in size at night enraged dissatisfied with myself not in those long drawn ill-suppressed sighs not in many an oath and promise broken not in my willful and savage souls volition not in the subtle nourishment of the air not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists not in the curious cistern and diastore within which will one day cease not in many a hungry wish told to the skies only not in cries laughter defiances thrown from me when alone far in the wilds not in husky pantings through clenched teeth not in sounded and resounded words chattering words echoes dead words not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day nor in the limbs and senses of my body that take you and dismiss you continually not dare not in any or all of them oh adhesiveness oh pulse of my life need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in these songs of the terrible doubt of appearances of the terrible doubt of appearances of the uncertainty after all that we may be deluded that may be reliance and hope are but speculations after all that may be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only may be the things I perceive the animals, plants, men, hills shining and flowing waters the skies of day and night colors, densities, forms may be these are a stoutless they are only apparitions and a real something has yet to be known how often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock me how often I think neither I know nor any man knows all of them may be seeming to me what they are a stoutless they indeed but seem as for my present point of view and might prove as of course they would not of what they appear or not anyhow from entirely changed points of view to me these and the like of these are curiously answered by my lovers my dear friends when he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand when the subtle air, the impalpable the sense that words and reason hold not surround us and pervade us then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom I am silent, I require nothing further I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave but I walk or sit indifferent I am satisfied he a hold of my hand has completely satisfied me the base of all metaphysics and now gentlemen a word I give to remain in your memories and minds as base and finale too for all metaphysics so to the students the old professor at the close of his crowded course having studied the new and antique the Greek and Germanic systems Kant having studied and stated Fichte and Schelling and Hegel stated the lore of Plato and Socrates greater than Plato and greater than Socrates sought and stated Christ divine having studied long I see reminiscent today those Greek and Germanic systems see the philosophies all Christian churches and tenets see yet underneath Socrates clearly see and underneath Christ the divine I see the dear love of man for his comrade the attraction of friend to friend of the well-married husband and wife of children and parents of city for city and land for land recorders ages hence recorders ages hence come I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior I will tell you what to say of me publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover the friend the lovers portrait of whom his friend his lover was fondest who was not proud of his songs but of the measureless ocean of love within him and freely poured it forth who often walked lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends his lovers who pensive away from one he loved often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night who knew too well the sick sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly be indifferent to him whose happiest days were far away through fields in woods on hills he and another wandering hand in hand they twain apart from other men who oft as he sauntered the streets curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend while the arm of his friend rested upon him also when I heard at the close of the day when I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capital still it was not a happy night for me that followed and else when I coroused or when my plans were accomplished still I was not happy but the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health refreshed singing inhaling the ripe breath of autumn when I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light when I wandered alone over the beach and undressing bathed laughing with the cool waters and saw the sun rise and when I thought how my dear friend, my lover was on his way coming oh then I was happy oh then each breath tasted sweeter and all that day my food nourished me more and a beautiful day passed well and the next came with equal joy and with the next that evening came my friend and that night while all was still I heard the waters whirl slowly continually up the shores I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me for the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night in the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me and his arm lay lightly around my breast and that night I was happy are you the new person drawn toward me? are you the new person drawn toward me? to begin with take warning I am surely far different from what you suppose do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? do you think it's so easy to have me become your lover? do you think the friendship of me would be unalloyed satisfaction? do you think I am trusty and faithful? do you see no further than this facade this smooth and tolerant manner of me? do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion, roots and leaves themselves alone? roots and leaves themselves alone are these scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond site breasts oral and pinks of love fingers that wind around tighter than vines gushes from the throats of birds hidden foliage of trees as the sun is risen breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living sea to you, O sailors frost-mallowed berries and third-month twigs offered fresh to young persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up love buds put before you and within you whoever you are buds to be unfolded on the old terms if you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring form, colour, perfume to you if you become the element and the wet they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees not heat flames up and consumes not heat flames up and consumes not sea waves hurry in and out not the air delicious and dry the air of ripe summer bears lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seas waited, sailing gracefully to drop where they may not these, O none of these more than the flames of me consuming, burning for his love whom I love O none more than I, hurrying in and out does the tide hurry, seeking something and never give up? oh, I the same oh, nor down-balls nor perfumes nor the high, rain-emitting clouds are born through the open air any more than my soul is born through the open air wafted in all directions, O love for friendship, for you trickle drops trickle drops, my blue veins leaving O drops of me trickle, slow drops candid from me falling drip, bleeding drops from wounds made to free you whence you were present for my face, for my forehead and lips for my breast, from within where I was concealed press forth, red drops confession drops stain every page stain every song I sing every word I say bloody drops let them know your scarlet heat let them glisten saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet glow upon all I have written or shall write bleeding drops let it all be seen in your light blushing drops city of orgies city of orgies walks and joys city whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make not the pageants of you not your shifting tableaus your spectacles repay me not the interminable rows of your houses nor the ships at the wharves nor the processions in the streets nor the bright windows with goods in them nor to converse with learned persons or bear my share in the soiree or feast not those but as I pass, oh Manhattan your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love offering response to my own these repay me lovers, continual lovers only repay me behold this swarthy face behold this swarthy face these grey eyes this beard, the wide wool unclipped upon my neck my brown hands and the silent manner of me without charm yet comes one a Manhattanese and ever at parting kisses me lightly on the lips with robust love and I on the crossing of the street or on the ship's deck give a kiss in return we observe that salute of American comrades land and sea we are those two natural and nonchalant persons I saw in Louisiana a live oak growing I saw in Louisiana a live oak growing all alone said it and the moss hung down from the branches without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green and its look, rude, unbending, lusty made me think of myself but I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near for I knew I could not and I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it and twined around it a little moss and brought it away and I have placed it in sight in my room it is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends for I believe lately I think of little else than of them yet it remains to me a curious token it makes me think of manly love for all that and though the live oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend, a lover near I know very well I could not too a stranger passing stranger you do not know how longingly I look upon you you must be he I was seeking for she I was seeking it comes to me as of a dream I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you all is recalled as we flit by each other fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured you grew up with me were a boy with me or a girl with me I ate with you and slept with you your body has become not yours only or left my body mine only you give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh as we pass you take of my beard, breast, hands in return I am not to speak to you I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone I am to wait I do not doubt I am to meet you again I am to see to it that I do not lose you this moment yearning and thoughtful this moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone it seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful it seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany, Italy, France, Spain or far, far away in China or in Russia or talking other dialects and it seems to me if I could know those men I should become attached to them as I do to men in my own lands oh, I know we should be brethren and lovers I know I should be happy with them I hear it was charged against me I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions but really I am neither for nor against institutions what indeed have I in common with them or what with the destruction of them only I will establish in the Manahatta and in every city of these states inland and seaboard and in the fields and woods and above every keel, little or large that dents the water without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument the institution of the dear love of comrades the prairie grass dividing the prairie grass dividing its special odor breathing I demand of it the spiritual corresponding demand the most copious and close companionship of men demand the blades to rise of words act beings those of the open atmosphere coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious those that go their own gate, erect stepping with freedom and command leading, not following those with a never quelled audacity those with sweet and lusty flesh clear of taint those that look carelessly in the faces of presidents and governors as to say who are you those of earth-born passion, simple never constrained, never obedient those of inland America when I peruse the conquered fame when I peruse the conquered fame of heroes and victories of mighty generals I do not envy the generals nor the president in his presidency nor the rich in his great house but when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers how it was with them how together through life, through dangers, odium unchanging, long and long through youth and through middle and old age how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were then I am pensive I hastily walk away filled with a bitterest envy we two boys together clinging we two boys together clinging one the other never leaving up and down the roads going north and south excursions making power enjoying elbows stretching fingers clutching armed and fearless eating, drinking, sleeping, loving no law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening misers, menials, priests alarming air breathing, water drinking on the turf or the sea beach dancing cities wrenching, ease scorning statues mocking, feebleness chasing fulfilling our foray a promise to California a promise to California or inland to the great pastoral plains and on to Puget Sound and Oregon so journey east a while longer soon I travel toward you to remain to teach robust American love for I know very well that I and robust love belong among you inland and along the western sea for these states tend inland and toward the western sea and I will also hear the frailest leaves of me hear the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting hear I shade and hide my thoughts I myself do not expose them and yet they expose me more than all my other poems no labor-saving machine no labor-saving machine nor discovery have I made nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found hospital or library nor reminiscence of any deed of courage for America literary success nor intellect nor book for the bookshelf but a few carols vibrating through the air I leave for comrades and lovers a glimpse a glimpse through an interstice cult of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar room around the stove late of a winter night and I unremarked seated in a corner of a youth who loves me and whom I love silently approaching and seating himself near that he may hold me by the hand a long while amid denoises of coming and going of drinking and oaths and smutty jest there we too content happy in being together speaking little perhaps not a word a leaf for hand in hand a leaf for hand in hand you natural persons old and young you on the Mississippi and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi you friendly boatmen and mechanics you roughs you twain and all processions moving along the streets I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand earth my likeness earth my likeness though you look so impassive ample and spheric there I now suspect that is not all I now suspect there is something fierce in you eligible to burst forth for an athlete is enamored of me and I of him but toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me eligible to burst forth I dare not tell it in words not even in these songs I dreamed in a dream I dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth I dreamed that was the new city of friends nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love it led to rest it was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city and in all their looks and words what think you I take my pen in hand what think you I take my pen in hand to record the battleship perfect modeled majestic that I saw past the offering today under full sale the splendours of the past day or the splendour of the night that envelops me or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me no but merely of two simple men I saw today on the pier in the midst of the crowd the burning departing of dear friends the one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kissed him while the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms to the east and to the west to the east and to the west to the man of the seaside state and of Pennsylvania to the Canadian of the north to the Southerner I love with perfect trust to depict you as myself the germs are in all men I believe the main purport of these states is to found a superb friendship exult previously unknown because I perceive it waits and has been always waiting latent in all men sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturned love but now I think there is no unreturned love the pay is certain one way or another I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not returned yet out of that I have written these songs to a western boy many things to absorb I teach to help you become elevator of mine yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins if you be not silently selected by lovers and do not silently select lovers of what uses it that you seek to become elevator of mine fast anchored eternal oh love fast anchored eternal oh love a woman I love oh bride oh wife more resist less than I can tell the thought of you then separate as disembodied or another born ethereal the last athletic reality my consolation I ascend I float in the regions of your love oh man oh sharer of my roving life among the multitude among the men and women the multitude I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs acknowledging none else not parent wife husband brother child any nearer than I am some are baffled but that one is not that one knows me ah lover and perfect equal I meant that you should discover me by so faint in directions and I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you oh you whom I often and silently come oh you whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you as I walk by your side or sit near or remain in the same room with you little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me that shadow my likeness that shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood chattering jaffering how often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits how often I question and doubt whether that is really me but among my lovers and caroling these songs oh I never doubt whether that is really me full of life now full of life now compact visible I 40 years old the 83rd year of the states to one a century hence or any number of centuries hence to you yet unborn these seeking you when you read these I that was visible and become invisible now it is you compact visible realising my poems seeking me fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade be it as if I were with you be not too certain but I am now with you end of book 5 recording by phone book 6 of leaves of grass by Walt Whitman this liver fox recording is in the public domain recording by phone salut au monde one oh take my hand Walt Whitman such gliding wonders such sights and sounds such joined unended links each hooked to the next each answering all each sharing the earth with all what widens within you Walt Whitman what waves and soils exuding what climbs what persons and cities are here who are the infants some playing some slumbering who are the girls who are the married women who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms about each other's necks what rivers are these what forests and fruits are these what are the mountains called that rise so high in the mists what myriads of dwellings are they filled with dwellers two within me latitude widens longitude lengthens Asia Africa Europe or to the east America is provided for in the west banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator curiously north and south turn the axis ends within me is the longest day the sun wheels in slanting rings it does not set for months stretched in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the horizon and sinks again within me zones seas cataracts forests volcanoes groups Malaysia Polynesia and the great West Indian Islands three what do you hear Walt Whitman I hear the workman singing and the farmers wife singing I hear in the distance the sounds of children and of animals early in the day I hear emulous shouts of Australians pursuing the wild horse I hear the Spanish dance with cussanets in the chestnut shade to the Rebecca and guitar I hear continual echoes from the Thames I hear fierce French Liberty songs I hear of the Italian boats color the musical recitative of old poems I hear the locusts in Syria as they strike the grain and grass with the showers of their terrible clouds I hear the Coptic refrain towards sundown pensively falling on the breast of the black venerable, fast mothered in Nile I hear the chirp of the Mexican mula tear and the bells of the mule I hear the Arab muazzine calling from the top of the mosque I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches I hear the responsive bass and soprano I hear the cry of the cossack and the sailor's voice putting to sea at Okotsk I hear the wheeze of the slave-cuffle as the slaves march on as the husky gangs pass on by twos and threes fastened together with wrist chains and ankle chains I hear the Hebrew reading as records and songs I hear the rhythmic mitts of the Greeks and the strong legends of the Romans I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful God the Christ I hear the Hindu teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars, adages transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three thousand years ago four What do you see, Walt Whitman? Who are they you salute and that one after another salute you? I see a great round wonder rolling through space I see diminued farms, hamlets, ruins, graveyards jails, factories, palaces, huffles huts of barbarians, tents of nomads upon the surface I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleeping and the sunlit part on the other side I see the curious rapid change of the light and shade I see distant lands as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land is to me I see plenty as waters I see mountain peaks I see the sierras of Andes where they range I see plainly the Himalayas Chi and Shahs, altes, goats I see the giant pinnacles of Elbrus, Cusbeg, Bajajusi I see the sterian alps and the karnak alps I see the Pyrenees, Bulks, Carpathians and to the north the Dofer fields and Orphaxi, Mount Hikla I see Vesuvius and Etna, the mountains of the moon and the red mountains of Madagascar I see the Libyan, Arabian and Asiatic deserts I see huge, dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones the Atlantic and Pacific, the Sea of Mexico the Brazilian Sea and the Sea of Peru the waters of Hindustan, the China Sea and the Gulf of Guinea the Japan waters, the beautiful Bay of Nagasaki land blocked in its mountains the spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia the British shores and the Bay of Biscay the clear-sund Mediterranean and from one to another of its islands the White Sea and the Sea around Greenland I behold the mariners of the world some are in storms some in the night with the watch on a lookout some drifting helplessly some with contagious diseases I behold the sail and steamships of the world some in clusters in port some under voyages some double the Cape of Storms some Cape Verde others Cape Squire de Fui Bon or Bajadori others Dondrahead others positive straits of Sunda others Cape Lopatka others Bering Straits others Cape Horn others Sildegolf of Mexico or Aloncuba or Haiti others Hudson's Bay or Buffins Bay others positive straits of Dover others enter the Wash others the Firth of Solway others round Cape Clear others the Land's End others traverse the Zoudersee or the Sheld others as commerce and goers at Gibraltar or the Dardanelles others sternly push their way through the northern winter packs others Descent or Ascent others the Niger or the Congo others the Indus the Burramputur and Cambodja others wait steamed up ready to start in the ports of Australia wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseille, Lisbon, Naples Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, The Hague, Copenhagen wait at Valparaiso, Rio de Janeiro, Panama five I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth I see them in Great Britain I see them in Europe I see them in Asia and in Africa I see the electric telegraphs of the earth I see the filaments of the news of the wars deaths, losses, gains, passions of my race I see the long river stripes of the earth I see the Amazon and the Paraguay I see the four great rivers of China the Amur, the Yellow River, the Yangtze and the Pearl I see where the Zane flows and where the Danubi, the Loire, the Rhone and the Guadalcriver flow I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnipa, the Oder I see the Tusken going down the Arno and the Venetian along the Po I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Ajina Bay six I see the site of the old empire of Assyria and that of Persia and that of India I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Sakara I see the place of the idea of the deity incarnated by avatars in human forms I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth oracles, sacrifices, brahmanas, sabians, lamas, monks, muftis, exorters I see where druids walked the groves of Mona I see the mistletoe and forvane I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of gods I see the old signifiers I see Christ eating the bread of his last supper in the midst of huts and old persons I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules toiled faithfully and long and then died I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful nocturnal son the full-limbed Bacchus I see Nuth blooming, dressed in blue with the crown of feathers on his head I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying well-beloved, saying to the people do not weep for me this is not my true country I have lived banished from my true country I now go back there I return to the celestial sphere where everyone goes in his turn Seven I see the battlefields of the earth grass grows upon them and blossoms and corn I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions I see the nameless masonries venerable messages of the unknown events, heroes, records of the earth I see the places of the sagas I see pine trees and fir trees torn by northern blasts I see granite boulders and cliffs I see green meadows and lakes I see the burial cairns of Scandinavian warriors I see them raised high with stones by the march of restless oceans that the dead men spirits when they wearied of their quiet graves might rise up through the mounds and gaze on the tossing billows and be refreshed by storms, immensity, liberty, action I see the steps of Asia I see the tumult of Mongolia I see the tents of Kalmux and Baskirs I see the nomadic tribes with herds of oxen and cows I see the tablelands notched with ravines I see the jungles and deserts I see the camel, the wild steed the bustard, the fat-tailed sheep the antelope and the burrowing wolf I see the highlands of Abyssinia I see flocks of goats feeding and see the fig tree, tamarind, date and see fields of teff wheat and places of firger and gold I see the Brazilian vaquero I see the Bolivian ascending Mancerata I see the huacho crossing the plains I see the incomparable rider of horses with his lasso on his arm I see over the Pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides Ate I see the regions of snow and ice I see the sharp-eyed Samoite and the fin I see the seal-seeker in his boat poising his lawns I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge drawn by dogs I see the porpoise hunters I see the whale-cruise of the South Pacific and the North Atlantic I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents valleys of Switzerland I mark the long winters and the isolation I see the cities of the earth and make myself at random a part of them I am a real Parisian I am a habitant of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople I am of Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Aporto, Lyon, Brussels Bern, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence I belong in Moscow, Krakow, Warsaw or northward in Christiania or Stockholm or in Siberian Irkutsk or in some street in Iceland I descend upon all those cities and rise from them again Ten I see vapours exhaling from unexplored countries I see the savage types, the bow and arrow the poisoned splint, the fetish and the obi I see African and Asiatic towns I see Algiers, Tripoli, Durn, Mogadori, Timbuktu, Monrovia I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Kolkata, Tokyo I see the crewman in his hut and the dauman and the shantiman in their huts I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Kiva and those of Herat I see Tehran, I see Muscat and Medina and the intervening sands I see the caravans toiling onward I see Egypt and the Egyptians I see the pyramids and obelisks I look on chiseled histories records of conquering kings, dynasties cut in slabs of sandstone or on granite blocks I see at Memphis mummy pits containing mummies embalmed swathed in linen cloth lying there many centuries I look on the fallen Theban the large bald eyes the side dripping neck the hands folded across the breast I see all the menials of the earth laboring I see all the prisoners in the prisons I see the defective human bodies of the earth the blind, the deaf and dumb the idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers slave makers of the earth the helpless infants and the helpless old men and women I see male and female everywhere I see the serene brotherhood of philosophes I see the constructiveness of my race I see the results of the perseverance of the industry of my race I see ranks, colours, barbarisms, civilisations I go among them, I mix indiscriminately and I salute all the inhabitants of the earth eleven you, whoever you are you, daughter or son of England you, of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires of Russia you, dim-descended, black, divine-sold African large, fine-headed nobly formed, superbly destined unequal terms with me you, Norwegian, sweet, Dane Icelander you, Prussian you, Spaniard of Spain you, Portuguese you, Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France you, Belgium you, Liberty lover of the Netherlands you, stuck when I myself have descended you, sturdy Austrian you, Lombard Hun Bohemian farmer of Styria you, neighbour of the Danubi you, working man of the Rhine the Elbe or the Vesa you, working woman too you, Sardinian you, Bavarian Saxon Wallachian Bulgarian you, Roman Neapolitan you, Greek you, lice matador in the arena at Seville you, mountaineer living lawlessly on the tourists or caucuses you, buck horse-herd watching your mares and stallions feeding you, beautiful body Persian at full speed in the saddle shooting arrows to the mark you, China man and China woman of China you, Tartar of Tartary you, women of the earth subordinated at your tasks you, Jew, journeying in your old age through every risk to stand once on Syrian ground you, other Jews waiting in all lands for your messiah you, thoughtful Armenian pondering by some stream of the Euphrates you, peering amid the ruins of Nineveh you, ascending Mount Ararat you, foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the Minerates of Mecca you, shakes along the stretch from Suez to Babel-Mande ruling your families and tribes you, olive grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth Damascus or Lake Tiberias you, Tibet trader on the wide inland or bargaining in the shops of Lhasa you, Japanese man or woman you, liver in Madagascar Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo all you, Continentals of Asia Africa, Europe, Australia indifferent of place all you, on the numberless islands of the archipelagos of the sea and you, of centuries hence when you listen to me and you, each and everywhere whom I specify not but include just the same health to you goodwill to you all from me and America sent each of us inevitable each of us limitless each of us with his or her right upon the earth each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth each of us here as divinely as any is here twelve you, Hotentot with clicking pallet you, woolly-haired hoards you, owned persons dropping sweat drops you, human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes you, poor Kaboo whom the meanest of the rest looked down upon for all your glimmering language and spirituality you, dwarfed Kamchatskin Greenlander, lap you, austral Negro naked, red, city with protrusive lip grovelling, seeking your food you, Kaffir, Berber, Sudanese you, haggard, uncouth untutored, berouy you, plague swarms in Madras Nankin, Kaboo, Cairo you, benighted romer of Amazonia you, Patagonian you, Fiji man I do not prefer others so very much before you either I do not say one word against you but way back there where you stand you will come forward in due time to my side Thirteen my spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole earth I have looked for equals and lovers and found them ready for me in all lands I think some divine report has equalized me with them you vapours I think I have risen with you moved away to distant continents and fallen down there for reasons I think I have blown with you you winds you waters I have fingered every shore with you I have run through what any river or straight of the globe has run through I have taken my stand on the basis of peninsulas and on the high embedded rocks to cry thence what cities the light or warmth penetrates I penetrate those cities myself all islands to which birds wing their way I wing my way myself toward you all in America's name I raise high the perpendicular hand I make the signal to remain after me in sight forever for all the haunts and hones of men End of book six, recording by phone