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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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SCENTED HERBAGE OF MY BREAST.
SCENTED herbage of my breast, |
Leaves from you I glean, I write, to be perused best afterwards, |
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves growing up above me above death, |
Perennial roots, tall leaves, O the winter shall not freeze you
delicate leaves,
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Every year shall you bloom again, out from where you retired you
shall emerge again;
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O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or
inhale your faint odor, but I believe a few will;
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O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell
in your own way of the heart that is under you,
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O I do not know what you mean there underneath yourselves, you
are not happiness,
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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,
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Death is beautiful from you, (what indeed is finally beautiful except
death and love?)
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O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers,
I think it must be for death,
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For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmosphere
of lovers,
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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 O death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same
as you mean,
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Grow up taller sweet leaves that I may see! grow up out of my
breast!
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Spring away from the conceal'd heart there! |
Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots timid leaves! |
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Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast! |
Come I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine, I
have long enough stifled and choked;
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Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve me
not,
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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 their call,
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I will raise with it immortal reverberations through the States, |
I will give an example to lovers to take permanent shape and
will through the States,
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Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating, |
Give me your tone therefore O 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 death are,
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Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life, |
For now it is convey'd 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,
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That you beyond them come forth to remain, the real reality, |
That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter
how long,
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That you will one day perhaps take control of all, |
That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance, |
That may-be you are what it is all for, but it does not last so very
long,
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But you will last very long. |
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