— I expos\da\e!
(O admirers, praise not me — compliment not me — you make
    me wince,
I see what you do not — I know what you do not.)
Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch'd and choked,
Beneath this face that appears so impassive hell's tides
    continually run,
Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,
I walk with delinquents with passionate love,
I feel I am of them — I belong to those convicts and prostitutes
    myself,
And henceforth I will not deny them — for how can I deny
    myself?

1860 1867

LAWS FOR CREATIONS

Laws for creations,
For strong artists and leaders, for fresh broods of teachers
    and perfect literats for America,
For noble savans and coming musicians.
All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the
    compact truth of the world,
There shall be no subject too pronounced — all works shall
    illustrate the divine law of indirections.

What do you suppose creation is?
What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk
    free and own no superior?
What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred
    ways, but that man or woman is as good as God?
And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?
And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally
    mean?
And that you or any one must approach creations through
    such laws?

1860 1871

TO A COMMON PROSTITUTE

Be composed — be at ease with me — I am Walt Whitman,
     liberal and lusty as Nature,
Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to
    rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and
    rustle for you.

My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you
    that you make preparation to be worthy to meet me,
And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.

Till then I salute you with a significant look that you do not
    forget me.

1860 1860

I WAS LOOKING A LONG WHILE

I was looking a long while for Intentions,
For a clew to the history of the past for myself, and for these
    chants — and now I have found it,
It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither
    accept nor reject,)
It is no more in the legends than in all else,
It is in the present — it is this earth to-day,
It is in Democracy — (the purport and aim of all the past,)
It is the life of one man or one woman to-day — the average
    man of to-day,
It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts,
It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery,
    politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange
    of nations,
All for the modern — all for the average man of to-day.

1860 1881

THOUGHT

Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth,
    scholarships, and the like;
(To me all that those persons have arrived at sinks away
    from them, except as it results to their bodies and souls,
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked,
And often to me each one mocks the others, and mocks himself
    or herself,
And of each one the core of life, namely happiness, is full of
    the rotten excrement of maggots,
And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly the
    true realities of life, and go toward false realities,
And