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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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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 what 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 sole and exclusive standard,
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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 abandon'd,
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Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further, let
go your hand from my shoulders,
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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 roof'd room of a house I emerge not, nor in com-
pany,
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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,
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Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or
some quiet island,
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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,
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Carry me when you go forth over land or sea; |
For thus merely touching you is enough, is best, |
And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried
eternally.
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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,
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Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me,
behold!
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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,
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Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it, |
Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise
me,
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Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few)
prove victorious,
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Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil,
perhaps more,
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For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times
and not hit, that which I hinted at;
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Therefore release me and depart on your way. |
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