Song of Myself: List 1

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind

The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag

The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.

Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.

People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love

The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.

The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd,
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes

What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls restrain’d by decorum

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.

From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings,
I see in them and myself the same old law.

I am enamour’d of growing out-doors,
Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods

A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable down by the Oconee I live

A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.

Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?

Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel’d with doctors and calculated close,
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

I know I am august

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize

I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough

Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?

It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!

Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!

Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,
I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.

Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,
My gait is no fault-finder’s or rejecter’s gait

A word of the faith that never balks,
Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.

I accept Reality and dare not question it,
Materialism first and last imbuing.