The Essential Works of Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman

      I Sing the Body Electric (1855)

       Table of Contents

      The bodies of men and women engirth me, and I engirth them,

       They will not let me off nor I them till I go with them and respond to them and love them.

      Was it dreamed whether those who corrupted their own live bodies could conceal themselves?

       And whether those who defiled the living were as bad as they who defiled the dead?

      The expression of the body of man or woman balks account,

       The male is perfect and that of the female is perfect.

      The expression of a wellmade man appears not only in his face,

       It is in his limbs and joints also . . . . it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,

       It is in his walk . . the carriage of his neck . . the flex of his waist and knees . . . . dress does not hide him,

       The strong sweet supple quality he has strikes through the cotton and flannel;

       To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem . . perhaps more,

       You linger to see his back and the back of his neck and shoulderside.

      The sprawl and fulness of babes . . . . the bosoms and heads of women . . . . the folds of their dress . . . . their style as we pass in the street . . . . the contour of their shape downwards;

       The swimmer naked in the swimmingbath . . seen as he swims through the salt transparent greenshine, or lies on his back and rolls silently with the heave of the water;

       Framers bare-armed framing a house . . hoisting the beams in their places . . or using the mallet and mortising-chisel,

      The bending forward and backward of rowers in rowboats . . . . the horseman in his saddle;

       Girls and mothers and housekeepers in all their exquisite offices,

       The group of laborers seated at noontime with their open dinnerkettles, and their wives waiting,

       The female soothing a child . . . . the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cowyard,

       The woodman rapidly swinging his axe in the woods . . . . the young fellow hoeing corn . . . . the sleighdriver guiding his six horses through the crowd,

       The wrestle of wrestlers . . two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, goodnatured, nativeborn, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,

       The coats vests and caps thrown down . . the embrace of love and resistance,

       The upperhold and underhold -- the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;

       The march of firemen in their own costumes -- the play of the masculine muscle through cleansetting trowsers and waistbands,

       The slow return from the fire . . . . the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again -- the listening on the alert,

       The natural perfect and varied attitudes . . . . the bent head, the curved neck, the counting:

       Suchlike I love . . . . I loosen myself and pass freely . . . . and am at the mother’s breast with the little child,

       And swim with the swimmer, and wrestle with wrestlers, and march in line with the firemen, and pause and listen and count.

      I knew a man . . . . he was a common farmer . . . . he was the father of five sons . . . and in them were the fathers of sons . . . and in them were the fathers of sons.

      This man was of wonderful vigor and calmness and beauty of person;

       The shape of his head, the richness and breadth of his

      manners, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes,

       These I used to go and visit him to see . . . . He was wise also,

       He was six feet tall . . . . he was over eighty years old . . . . his sons were massive clean bearded tanfaced and handsome,

       They and his daughters loved him . . . all who saw him loved him . . . they did not love him by allowance . . . they loved him with personal love;

       He drank water only . . . . the blood showed like scarlet through the clear brown skin of his face;

       He was a frequent gunner and fisher . . . he sailed his boat himself . . . he had a fine one presented to him by a shipjoiner . . . . he had fowling-pieces, presented to him by men that loved him;

       When he went with his five sons and many grandsons to hunt or fish you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,

       You would wish long and long to be with him . . . . you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

      I have perceived 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 . . to touch any one . . . . to 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, but these please the soul well.

      This is the female form,

       A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,

       It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,

      I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor . . . . all falls aside but myself and it,

       Books, art, religion, time . . the visible and solid earth . . the atmosphere and the fringed clouds . . what was expected of heaven or feared of hell are now consumed,

       Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it . . the response likewise ungovernable,

       Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands -- all diffused . . . . mine too diffused,

       Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebb . . . . loveflesh swelling and deliciously aching,

       Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous . . . . quivering jelly of love . . . white-blow and delirious juice,

       Bridegroom-night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,

       Undulating into the willing and yielding day,

       Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweetfleshed day.

      This is the nucleus . . . after the child is born of woman the man is born of woman,

       This is the bath of birth . . . this is the merge of small and large and the outlet again.

      Be not ashamed women . . your privilege encloses the rest . . it is the exit of the rest,

       You are the gates of the body and you are the gates of the soul.

      The female contains all qualities and tempers them . . . . she is in her place . . . . she moves with perfect balance,

       She is all things duly veiled . . . . she is both passive and active . . . . she is to conceive daughters as well as sons and sons as well as daughters.