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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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FROM PENT-UP ACHING RIVERS.
FROM pent-up aching rivers, |
From that of myself without which I were nothing, |
From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand
sole among men,
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From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus, |
Singing the song of procreation, |
Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown
people,
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Singing the muscular urge and the blending, |
Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning! |
O for any and each the body correlative attracting! |
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O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than
all else, you delighting!)
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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 sought it
many a long year,
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Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random, |
Renascent 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,
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The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous
aching,
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The divine list for myself or you or for any one making, |
The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it
arouses,
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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,
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Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more
lawless than we;)
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The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling. |
The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman
that loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath
swearing,
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(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 the 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;)
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From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to, |
The general commanding me, commanding all, from him permis-
sion taking,
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From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter'd too long as
it is,)
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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, |
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From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers
through my hair and beard,
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From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom, |
From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting
with excess,
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From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood, |
From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow's embrace
in the night,
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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 un-
willing 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, |
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