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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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THIS COMPOST.
SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest, |
I withdraw from the still woods I loved, |
I will not go now on the pastures to walk, |
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea, |
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me. |
O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken? |
How can you be alive you growths of spring? |
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards,
grain?
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Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you? |
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead? |
Where have you disposed of their carcasses? |
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations? |
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Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? |
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd, |
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through
the sod and turn it up underneath,
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I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. |
Behold this compost! behold it well! |
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person—yet
behold!
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The grass of spring covers the prairies, |
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, |
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, |
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches, |
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its
graves,
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The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, |
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit
on their nests,
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The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs, |
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow,
the colt from the mare,
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Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves, |
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the
dooryards,
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The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those
strata of sour dead.
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That the winds are really not infectious, |
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea
which is so amorous after me,
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That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its
tongues,
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That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited
themselves in it,
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That all is clean forever and forever, |
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, |
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, |
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
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That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, |
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once
a catching disease.
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Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient, |
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, |
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless
successions of diseas'd corpses,
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It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, |
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptu-
ous crops,
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It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings
from them at last.
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