Walt Whitman is indeed that poet who sings the body electric, who shows how the sensual and the soulful mirror and celebrate each other. I’d almost forgotten how it’s done. This is what I was looking for in my last post, the kind of sensuality that sets the soul on fire.
From Song of Myself
I
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my Soul;
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes—the shelves are crowded with perfumes;
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it;
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it is odorless;
It is for my mouth forever—I am in love with it;
I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
III
Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life . . . .
Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul . . . .
Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.
V
I believe in you my soul, and the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my boson-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.
Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love . . . .
XI
She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank;
She hides, handsome and richly drest, aft the blinds of the window.
Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah, the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.
Where are you off to, lady? for I see you;
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.
Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather;
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.
The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair:
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.
An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies;
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.
The young men float on their backs—their white bellies bulge to the sun—they do not ask who seizes fast to them;
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch;
They do not think whom they souse with spray.
XXI
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.
From I Sing the Body Electric
4
I have perceived to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by the beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round 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, and these please the soul well.
9
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
* * *
I could have added many more lush lines, but I’ll stop here. If you haven’t read Leaves of Grass lately, I highly recommend.
Most people don’t realize that “I sing the body electric” was indeed filched from Whitman. And I never get tired of the song, either.
_____
I didn’t know that, Nancy. I don’t know the song either, so I’m going to look it up. Who is it by?
Love this. Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome, Book Guy! I like your blog too.
I shall pick it up. I am a poetry-dunce, but I can at least admit it moves me in some way. 🙂 Hopefully some day I’ll understand it better.
I’m glad it moves you, Alex. I think Whitman is a great place to start for those who do not read much poetry. It speaks a common tongue.
Love Whitman. Few years back I read Leaves of Grass in its entirety. Gained such a deep respect for his work.
That’s quite an undertaking, Jeff. I hope to do that too someday. Mostly I dip in and out.
Thank you for the reminder. I love Whitman. “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” is one of my absolutely favorite poems.
Yes, from his Sea-Drift poems. For sea lovers especially, so much to enjoy.
I made a big point of bringing Whitman to the shelter kitties last night, but they weren’t into it, for some reason. I think it’s because the dominant male who stalks some of the females was gone for now and they were all out roaming (except Slupe) and were getting used to each other. They preferred music and smiling at us.
He is the very best!
Lovely. I haven’t read any Whitman for awhile. Thanks for sharing this and helping me to remember his work.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/03/this-is-the-world-calling-the-ants-are-my-friends-the-ants-are-my-friends-the-ants-are-just-blowing-in-the-wind-lorrie.html