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I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the...
En commençant mes études le premier pas m’a plu si fort,
Le simple fait de la conscience, ces formes, la motilité,
Le moindre insecte ou animal, les sens, la vue, l’amour,
Le premier pas, dis-je, m’a frappé d’un tel respect et plu si fort,
Que je ne suis guère allé et n’ai guère eu envie d’aller plus loin,
Mais de m’arrêter à musarder tout le temps pour chanter...
J’entends chanter l’Amérique, j’entends ses diverses chansons,
Celles des ouvriers, chacun chantant la sienne joyeuse et forte comme elle doit l’être,
Le charpentier qui chante la sienne en mesurant sa planche ou sa poutre,
Le maçon qui chante la sienne en se préparant au travail ou en le quittant,
Le batelier qui chante ce qui est de sa partie dans son bateau, le...
Ô Capitaine ! mon Capitaine ! fini notre effrayant voyage,
Le bateau a tous écueils franchis, le prix que nous quêtions est gagné,
Proche est le port, j'entends les cloches, tout le monde qui exulte,
En suivant des yeux la ferme carène, l'audacieux et farouche navire ;
Mais ô cœur ! cœur ! cœur !
Oh ! les gouttes rouges qui lentement tombent
Sur le pont où...
Une femme m’attend, elle contient tout, rien ne fait défaut,
Cependant tout ferait défaut si le sexe manquait, ou si manquait pour l’humecter l’homme qu’il faut.
Le sexe contient tout, les corps et les âmes,
Les intentions, les preuves, la pureté, la délicatesse, les résultats, les promulgations,
Les chants, les ordres, la santé, l’orgueil, le mystère de la maternité,...
How they are provided for upon the earth (appearing at intervals),
How dear and dreadful they are to the earth,
How they inure to themselves as much as to any, what a paradox appears their age,
How people respond to them, yet know them not,
How there is something relentless in their fate all times,
How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation...
Still though the one I sing,
(One, yet of contradictions made) I dedicate to Nationality,
I leave in him revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire!)
Myself
i celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the...
Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,
Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,
Give me a field where the unmowed grass grows,
Give me an arbor, give me the trellised grape,
Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals teaching content,
Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of...
I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb,
Rich, hemmed thick all around with...
