I Sing the Body Electric
…..— excerpt
4
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh
… is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so
… lightly around his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and
… looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases
… the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
.
Walt Whitman
from I Sing the Body Electric