The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked, The merriment of the twin babes that crawl over the grass in the sun, the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from them, The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen'd long-round walnuts, The continence of vegetables, birds, animals, The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent, The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity, The oath of procreation I have sworn, my Adamic and fresh daughters, The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through, The wholesome relief, repose, content, And this bunch pluck'd at random from myself, It has done its work-I toss it carelessly to fall where it may. ONE HOUR TO MADNESS AND JOY. ONE hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not! (What is this that frees me so in storms? What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?) O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man! O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children, I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.) O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me in defiance of the world! O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine! O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of a determin'd man. O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all untied and illumin'd! O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last! To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and you from yours! To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature! seet p.149 To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth! To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am. O something unprov'd! something in a trance! To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds ! To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous! To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me! To be lost if it must be so ! To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom! OUT OF THE ROLLING OCEAN THE CROWD. I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you, For I fear'd I might afterward lose you. Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe, Return in peace to the ocean my love, I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated, Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect! But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse for ever; Be not impatient a little space - know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land, Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love. AGES AND AGES RETURNING AT INTERVALS. AGES and ages returning at intervals, Undestroy'd, wandering immortal, Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, Through the new garden the West, the great cities calling, Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex, Offspring of my loins. WE TWO, HOW LONG WE WERE FOOL'D. WE two, how long we were fool'd, Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes, We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return, We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks, We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side, We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any, We are two fishes swimming in the sea together, We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings and evenings, We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals, We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic and stellar, we are as two comets, We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey, We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead, We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling over each other and interwetting each other, We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious, We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence of the globe, We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two, We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy. O HYMEN! O HYMENEE! O HYMEN ! O hymenee ! why do you tantalize me thus? Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease? Is it because if you continued beyond the swift moment you would soon certainly kill me? I AM HE THAT ACHES WITH LOVE. I AM he that aches with amorous love; Does the earth gravitate? does not all matter, aching, attract all matter? So the body of me to all I meet or know. NATIVE moments now, NATIVE MOMENTS. when you come upon me - ah you are here Give me now libidinous joys only, Give me the drench of my passions, give me life coarse and rank, To-day I go consort with Nature's darlings, to-night too, I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers, The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I pick out some low person for my dearest friend, He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be one condemn'd by others for deeds done, I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions? you shunn'd persons, I at least do not shun you, I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest. ONCE I PASS'D THROUGH A POPULOUS CITY. ONCE I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions, Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain'd me for love of me, Day by day and night by night we were together — all else has long been forgotten by me, I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me, Again we wander, we love, we separate again, Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go, I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous. I HEARD YOU SOLEMN-SWEET PIPES OF THE ORGAN. I HEARD You solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday morn I pass'd the church, Winds of autumn, as I walk'd the woods at dusk I heard your long-stretch'd sighs up above so mournful, I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing; Heart of my love! you too I heard murmuring low through one of the wrists around my head, Heard the pulse of you when all was still ringing little bells last night under my ear. FACING WEST FROM CALIFORNIA'S SHORES. FACING West from California's shores, Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar, Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled; For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kash mere, From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero, From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands, Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd, Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous, (But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?) AS ADAM EARLY IN THE MORNING. As Adam early in the morning, Walking forth from the bower refresh'd with sleep, Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, IN PATHS UNTRODDEN. N paths untrodden, IN In the growth by margins of pond-waters, Escaped from the life that exhibits itself, From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures, profits, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed my soul, Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that my soul, That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades, Here by myself away from the clank of the world, Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic, |