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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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OUT FROM BEHIND THIS MASK.
( To Confront a Portrait. )
OUT from behind this bending rough-cut mask, |
These lights and shades, this drama of the whole, |
This common curtain of the face contain'd in me for me, in you
for you, in each for each,
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(Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears—O heaven! |
The passionate teeming plays this curtain hid!) |
This glaze of God's serenest purest sky, |
This film of Satan's seething pit, |
This heart's geography's map, this limitless small continent, this
soundless sea;
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Out from the convolutions of this globe, |
This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon, than Jupiter, Venus,
Mars,
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This condensation of the universe, (nay here the only universe, |
Here the idea, all in this mystic handful wrapt;) |
These burin'd eyes, flashing to you to pass to future time, |
To launch and spin through space revolving sideling, from these
to emanate,
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To you whoe'er you are—a look. |
A traveler of thoughts and years, of peace and war, |
Of youth long sped and middle age declining, |
(As the first volume of a tale perused and laid away, and this the
second,
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Songs, ventures, speculations, presently to close,) |
Lingering a moment here and now, to you I opposite turn, |
View Page 297
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As on the road or at some crevice door by chance, or open'd win-
dow,
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Pausing, inclining, baring my head, you specially I greet, |
To draw and clinch your soul for once inseparably with mine, |
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