Walt Whitman: A Woman Waits For Me.
January 18, 2010, 3:52 am
Filed under: Uncategorized
Filed under: Uncategorized
| A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking, | |
| Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. | |
| Sex contains all, | |
| Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, | |
| Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; | 5 |
| All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, | |
| All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, | |
| All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the earth, | |
| These are contain’d in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself. | |
| Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex, | 10 |
| Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers. | |
| Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women, | |
| I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me; | |
| I see that they understand me, and do not deny me; | |
| I see that they are worthy of me—I will be the robust husband of those women. | 15 |
| They are not one jot less than I am, | |
| They are tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds, | |
| Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength, | |
| They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves, | |
| They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear, well-possess’d of themselves. | 20 |
| I draw you close to me, you women! | |
| I cannot let you go, I would do you good, | |
| I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others’ sakes; | |
| Envelop’d in you sleep greater heroes and bards, | |
| They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me. | 25 |
| It is I, you women—I make my way, | |
| I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable—but I love you, | |
| I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you, | |
| I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for These States—I press with slow rude muscle, | |
| I brace myself effectually—I listen to no entreaties, | 30 |
| I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me. | |
| Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself, | |
| In you I wrap a thousand onward years, | |
| On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America, | |
| The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers, | 35 |
| The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn, | |
| I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings, | |
| I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you interpenetrate now, | |
| I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now, | |
| I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now.
From: bartleby.com. |
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