University of Virginia Library

THE friend I am happy with,      The arm of my friend hanging idly over my      shoulder,
The hill-side whitened with blossoms of the      mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn — the gorgeous hues of      red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark      green,
The rich coverlid of the grass — animals and      birds — the private untrimmed bank — the      primitive apples — the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments — the negligent list      of one after another, as I happen to call them      to me, or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely      pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of      men like me,
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I al-     ways carry, and that all men carry,
(Know, once for all, avowed on purpose, wherever      are men like me, are our lusty, lurking, mas-     culine poems,)
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding,      love-climbers, and the climbing sap,
Arms and hands of love — lips of love — phallic      thumb of love — breasts of love — bellies,      pressed and glued together with love,
Earth of chaste love — life that is only life after      love,
The body of my love — the body of the woman I      love — the body of the man — the body of the      earth,
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up      and down — that gripes the full-grown lady-     flower, curves upon her with amorous firm      legs, takes his will of her, and holds himself      tremulous and tight upon her till he is satis-     fied,
The wet of woods through the early hours,
Two sleepers at night lying close together as they      sleep, one with an arm slanting down across      and below the waist of the other,
The smell of apples, aromas from crushed sage-     plant, mint, birch-bark,
The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he      confides to me what he was dreaming,
The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl, and falling      still and content to the ground,
The no-formed stings that sights, people, objects,      sting me with,
The hubbed sting of myself, stinging me as much      as it ever can any one,
The sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers, that      only privileged feelers may be intimate where      they are,
The curious roamer, the hand, roaming all over      the body — the bashful withdrawing of flesh      where the fingers soothingly pause and edge      themselves,
The limpid liquid within the young man,
The vexed corrosion, so pensive and so painful,
The torment — the irritable tide that will not be      at rest,
The like of the same I feel — the like of the same      in others,
The young woman that flushes and flushes, and      the young man that flushes and flushes,
The young man that wakes, deep at night, the hot      hand seeking to repress what would master      him — the strange half-welcome pangs, vis-     ions, sweats — the pulse pounding through      palms and trembling encirling fingers — the      young man all colored, red, ashamed, angry;
The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie      willing and naked,
The merriment of the twin-babes that crawl over      the grass in the sun, the mother never turn-     ing her vigilant eyes from them,
The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripen-     ing or ripened long-round walnuts,
The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,
The consequent meanness of me should I skulk      or find myself indecent, while birds and      animals never once skulk or find themselves      indecent,
The great chastity of paternity, to match the great      chastity of maternity,
The oath of procreation I have sworn,
The greed that eats in me day and night with      hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall pro-     duce boys to fill my place when I am through,
The wholesome relief, repose, content,
And this bunch plucked at random from myself,
It has done its work — I toss it carelessly to fall      where it may.