Song of Myself
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"Song of Myself" is a poem by Walt Whitman (1819–1892) that is included in his work Leaves of Grass. It has been credited as "representing the core of Whitman's poetic vision." |
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| wikipedia:: Song of Myself |
Excerpts
1 I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
2 And what I assume you shall assume,
3 For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
4 I loafe and invite my soul,
5 I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
6 My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
7 Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
8 I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
9 Hoping to cease not till death.
14 Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
15 I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
16 The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
17 The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
18 It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
19 I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
20 I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
33 Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
34 You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
35 You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
36 You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
37 You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
38 I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,
39 But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
40 There was never any more inception than there is now,
41 Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
42 And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
43 Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
44 Urge and urge and urge,
45 Always the procreant urge of the world.
46 Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex,
47 Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.
52 Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
53 Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
54 Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
55 Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
56 Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
57 Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,
58 Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.
59 I am satisfied -- I see, dance, laugh, sing;
1324 Do I contradict myself?
1325 Very well then I contradict myself,
1326 (I am large, I contain multitudes.)