19
This is the meal equally set--this is the meat for natural hunger;
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous--I make appointments with all;
I will not have a single person slighted or left away;
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited;
The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited--the venerealee is invited:
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.
This is the press of a bashful hand--this is the float and odor of hair;
This is the touch of my lips to yours--this is the murmur of yearning;
This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face;
This is the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.
Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
Well, I have--for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock
has.
Do you take it I would astonish?
Does the daylight astonish? Does the early redstart, twittering through the woods?
Do I astonish more than they?
This hour I tell things in confidence;
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.
20
Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
What is a man, anyhow? What am I? What are you?
All I mark as my own, you shall offset it with your own;
Else it were time lost listening to me.
I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
That months are vacuums, and the ground but wallow and filth;
That life is a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbare crape, and
tears.
Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids--conformity goes to the
fourth-remov'd;
I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out.
Why should I pray? Why should I venerate and be ceremonious?
Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsell'd with doctors, and
calculated close,
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
In all people I see myself--none more, and not one a barleycorn less;
And the good or bad I say of myself, I say of them.
And I know I am solid and sound; To me the converging objects of the universe
perpetually flow;
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.
I know I am deathless;
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by the carpenter's compass;
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.
I know I am august;
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood;
I see that the elementary laws never apologize;
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.)
I exist as I am--that is enough;
If no other in the world be aware, I sit content;
And if each and all be aware, I sit content.
One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself;
And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite;
I laugh at what you call dissolution;
And I know the amplitude of time.
21
I am the poet of the Body;
And I am the poet of the Soul.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me;
The first I graft and increase upon myself--the latter I translate into a new tongue.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man;
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man;
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
I chant the chant of dilation or pride;
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough;
I show that size is only development.
Have you outstript the rest? Are you the President?
It is a trifle--they will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass on.
I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;
I call to the earth and sea, half-held by the night.
Press close, bare-bosom'd night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing night!
Night of south winds! night of the large few stars!
Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night.
Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath'd earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees;
Earth of departed sunset! earth of the mountains, misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow'd earth! rich, apple-blossom'd earth!
Smile, for your lover comes!
Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable, passionate love!
22
You sea! I resign myself to you also--I guess what you mean;
I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers;
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me;
We must have a turn together--I undress--hurry me out of sight of the land;
Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse;
Dash me with amorous wet--I can repay you.
Sea of stretch'd ground-swells!
Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths!
Sea of the brine of life! sea of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves!
Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! I am integral with you--I too
am of one phase, and of all phases.
Partaker of influx and efflux I--extoller of hate and conciliation;
Extoller of amies, and those that sleep in each others' arms.
I am he attesting sympathy;
(Shall I make my list of things in the house, and skip the house that supports them?)
I am not the poet of goodness only--I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.
Washes and razors for foofoos--for me freckles and a bristling beard.
What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me--I stand indifferent;
My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait;
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?
Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and rectified?
I find one side a balance, and the antipodal side a balance;
Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine;
Thoughts and deeds of the present, our rouse and early start.
This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,
There is no better than it and now.
What behaved well in the past, or behaves well to-day, is not such a wonder;
The wonder is, always and always, how there can be a mean man or an infidel.
23
Endless unfolding of words of ages!
And mine a word of the modern--the word En-Masse.
A word of the faith that never balks;
Here or henceforward, it is all the same to me--I accept Time, absolutely.
It alone is without flaw--it rounds and completes all;
That mystic, baffling wonder I love, alone completes all.
I accept reality, and dare not question it;
Materialism first and last imbuing.
Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!
Fetch stonecrop, mixt with cedar and branches of lilac;
This is the lexicographer--this the chemist--this made a grammar of the old
cartouches;
These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas;
This is the geologist--this works with the scalpel--and this is a mathematician.
Gentlemen! to you the first honors always:
Your facts are useful and real--and yet they are not my dwelling;
(I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.)
Less the reminders of properties told, my words;
And more the reminders, they, of life untold, and of freedom and extrication,
And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and women fully
equipt,
And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives, and them that plot and conspire.
Մեջբերել
'
Philosopher-ի խոսքերից
), բայց կարդացի…
. պարզ, առանց բարձրագոչ բառերի, առանց չափազանցությունների, բայց միևնույն ժամանակ ինչքա՜ն բան էր պարունակում իր մեջ… Երազանքներ, սեր, հիշողություններ… Իսկական, մարդկային, անկեղծ մտորումներ… Մի ամբողջ կյանք…
…
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