O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded
     to me in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the
     lips of a determin'd man.

O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all
     untied and illumin'd!

O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at
     last!
To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from
     mine and you from yours!
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of
     Nature!
To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.

O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!
To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate soul!
To be lost if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and
     freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.

1860 1881

OUT OF THE ROLLING OCEAN THE CROWD

OUT of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
Whispering I love you, before long I die,
I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look'd on you,
For I fear'd I might afterward lose you.

Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe,
Return in peace to the ocean my love,
I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much
     separated,
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us
     diverse forever;
Be not impatient — a little space — know you I salute the air,
     the ocean and the land,
Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love.

1865 1867

AGES AND AGES RETURNING AT INTERVALS

AGES and ages returning at intervals,
Undestroy'd, wandering immortal,
Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet,
I, chanter of Adamic songs,
Through the new garden the West, the great cities calling,
Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these,
     offering myself,
Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex,
Offspring of my loins.

1860 1867

WE TWO, HOW LONG WE WERE FOOL'D

WE two, how long we were fool'd,
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,
We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,
We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as
     any,
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes
     mornings and evenings,
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves
     orbic and stellar, we are as two comets,
We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on
     prey,
We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving
     over-head,
We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves
     rolling over each other and interwetting each other,
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive,
     pervious, impervious,
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and
     influence of the globe,

We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again,
     we two,
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.

1860 1881