 | Leaves of grass (1872) |  |
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115
You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you mean;I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers;
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me;
We must have a turn together—I undress—hurry me out of sight of the land;
Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse;
Dash me with amorous wet—I can repay you.
116
Sea of stretch'd ground-swells!52
Sea of the brine of life! sea of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves!
Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea!
I am integral with you—I too am of one phase, and of all phases.
117
Partaker of influx and efflux I—extoller of hate and conciliation;Extoller of amies, and those that sleep in each others' arms.
118
I am he attesting sympathy;(Shall I make my list of things in the house, and skip the house that supports them?)
119
I am not the poet of goodness only—I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.120
Washes and razors for foofoos—for me freckles and a bristling beard.121
What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me—I stand indifferent;
My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait;
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
122
Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and rectified?
123
I find one side a balance, and the antipodal side a balance;Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine;
Thoughts and deeds of the present, our rouse and early start.
53
124
This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,There is no better than it and now.
125
What behaved well in the past, or behaves well today, is not such a wonder;The wonder is, always and always, how there can be a mean man or an infidel.
| Leaves of grass (1872) | |