Song of Myself —Excerpt
My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time,
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 as same as the man,
And I say it is a 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 outstripped the rest? are you the President?
It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and
….. and still pass on.
I am he that walks with 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!
.
Walt Whitman
from Leaves of Grass —Song of Myself