What do you suppose Creation is?

What do you suppose will satisfy the Soul, except to walk free, and own no superior?

What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as God?

And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?
And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally

mean?

ΙΟ

And that you or any one must approach Creations through such laws?

VISOR'D.

First published in 1860.

A MASK-a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,
Concealing her face, concealing her form,

Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,
Falling upon her even when she sleeps.

There shall be no subject too pronounced-All works shall illustrate the divine law of indirections ;

There they stand-I see them already, each poised and in its place,

Statements, models, censuses, poems, dictionaries, biographies, essays, theories -How complete! How relative and interfused! No one supersedes another;

They do not seem to me like the old specimens,

They seem to me like Nature at last, (America has given birth to them, and I have also ;)

They seem to me at last as perfect as the animals, and as the rocks and weeds -fitted to them,

Fitted to the sky, to float with floating clouds—to rustle among the trees with rustling leaves,

To stretch with stretched and level waters, where ships silently sail in the dis

tance."

CHILDREN OF ADAM.

TO THE GARDEN, THE WORLD.
First published in 1860.

TO THE garden, the world, anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,

The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,

Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber;

The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me

again,

Amorous, mature-all beautiful to me-all wondrous;

My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous;

Existing, I peer and penetrate still,

Content with the present-content with the past,
By my side, or back of me, Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

FROM PENT-UP ACHING RIVERS.

First published in 1860.

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 ;

From my own voice resonant-singing the phallus,

Singing the song of procreation,

Singing the need of superb children, and therein superb grown people,

Singing the muscular urge and the blending,

Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!

O for any and each, the body correlative attracting!

1 "From pent-up, aching rivers" added in 1867. See also note at line 10.

O for you, whoever you are, your correlative body! O it, more than all else, you delighting !)'

ΙΟ

--From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day;
From native moments-from bashful pains-singing them;
Singing something yet unfound, though I have diligently sought
it, many a long year ;2

Singing the true song of the Soul, fitful, at random ;

Singing what, to the Soul, entirely redeem'd her, the faithful one, even3 the prostitute, who detain'd me when I went to the city;

Singing the song of prostitutes;

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;

20

The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back lying and floating;

The female form approaching-I, pensive, love-flesh tremulous,

aching ;*

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;

The mystic deliria--the madness amorous- -the utter abandonment;

(Hark close, an still, what I now whisper to you,

I love you-O you entirely possess me,

30

OI wish that you and I escape from the rest, and go utterly off

-O free and lawless,

Two hawks in the air-two fishes swimming in tne sea not more lawless than we ;)

-The furious storm through me careering-I passionately trem

bling;

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;

1 After line 10, 1860, reads "From the pent-up rivers of myself."

2 1860 reads "ten thousand years.

366 even" added in 1867.

1860 '67. After line 25 read "The slave's body for sale-I sternly with harsh cice auctioneering.'

(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 :)

-From the master-the pilot I yield the vessel to;

'The general commanding me, commanding all-from him permission taking;

40

From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter'd too long, as it is ;)

From sex-From the warp and from the woof;

(To talk to the perfect girl who understands me,'

To waft to her these from my own lips-to effuse them from my own body ;)

From privacy-from frequent repinings alone;

From plenty of persons near, and yet the right person not

Lear;

From the soft sliding of hands over me, and thrusting of fingers through my hair and beard;

From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom ;

From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, faint

ing with excess;

From what the divine husband knows-from the work of fatherhood; 50

From exultation, victory, and relief-from the bedfellow's em

brace in the night;

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 coverlid off-throwing,

From the one so unwilling to have me leave—and me just as unwilling 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,' 60 And you, stalwart loins.

1 1860 reads "who understands me-the girl of The States.”
* 1860 reads "Celebrate you, enfans prepared for."

I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC.
"Poem of the Body."

First published in 1855. In 1856 under title of

I

I SING the Body electric ;1

The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them ;' They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,3 And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of

the Soul."

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves ?5

And if those who defile' the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?

And if the body does not do as much as the Soul ?9

And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?

2

The love of the Body of man or woman balks account—the body itself balks account;10

That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is per

fect.

The expression of the face balks account;12

ΙΟ

1 "I sing the body electric" added in 1867. 1860 reads "O my children! O mates !"

2 1855'56 read "The bodies of men and women engirth me and I engirth them." 1860 reads "O the bodies of you, and of all men and women engirth me," etc.

31855 reads "and responds to them and love them." 1856 reads "respond to them love them."

Line 4, added in 1860, reads "And respond to the contact of them, and discorrupt them," etc.

51855 reads "Was it doubted if those who corrupt their own live bodies conceal themselves?" 1856 reads "Was it dreamed whether those who corrupted their own live bodies could conceal themselves?" 1860 reads same as '56, omitting "live."

1855. For "if" reads "whether." 7,8 1855. For "defile" read "defiled." Lines 7 and 8 added in 1856.

10 1855 '56 read "The expression of the body of man or woman balks account."

11 "That of" added in 1860.

12 Line II added in 1860.