Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well
     entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is
     not my soul.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while
     they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

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.

I am satisfied — I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side
     through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day
     with stealthy tread,
Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the
     house with their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream
     at my eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and
     which is ahead?

Trippers and askers surround me,
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,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable
     certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering
     at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog
     with linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

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.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture,
     not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer
     morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd
     over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your
     tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held
     my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge
     that pass all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my
     own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the
     women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder,
     mullein and poke-weed.