I Sing the Body Electric

by Walt Whitman

     1
  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 dead?
  And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
  And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

       2
  The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body 
      itself balks account,
  That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

  The expression of the face balks account,
  But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his 
      face,
  It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
      his hips and wrists,
  It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
      and knees, dress does not hide him,
  The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and 
      broadcloth,
  To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps 
      more,
  You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-
      side.

  The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, 
      the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
      contour of their shape downwards,
  The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
      the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
      silently to and from the heave of the water,
  The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
      horse-man in his saddle,
  Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
  The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open
      dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
  The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or
      cow-yard,
  The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
      horses through the crowd,
  The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
      good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown 
      after work,
  The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
  The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding 
the eyes;
  The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
      muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
  The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
      suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
  The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd
      neck and the counting;
  Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's
      breast with the little child,
  Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
      the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

       3
  I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
  And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.

  This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
  The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and
      beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
      and breadth of his manners,
  These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
  He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were
      massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
  They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
  They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal 
       love,
  He drank water only, the blood show'd like scarlet through the
      clear-brown skin of his face,
  He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat himself, he
      had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
      fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
  When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt 
      or fish,
      you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous 
      of the gang,
  You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
      by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

       4
  I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough,
  To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
  To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh 
      is enough,
  To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
      round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
  I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.

  There is something in staying close to men and women and looking
      on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the 
      soul well,
  All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

       5
  This is the female form,
  A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
  It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
  I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
      all falls aside but myself and it,
  Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
      was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
  Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
      likewise ungovernable,
  Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
      diffused, mine too diffused,
  Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
      and deliciously aching,
  Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
      love, white-blow and delirious nice,
  Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate 
      dawn,
  Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
  Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.

  This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of 
       woman,
  This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
      outlet again.

  Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
      exit of the rest,
  You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

  The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
  She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
  She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,
  She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well 
       as daughters.

  As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
  As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
      sanity, beauty,
  See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

       6
  The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
  He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
  The flush of the known universe is in him,
  Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
  The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
      utmost become him well, pride is for him,
  The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
  Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to
      the test of himself,
  Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
      soundings at last only here,
  (Where else does he strike soundings except here?)

  The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred,
  No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the
      laborers' gang?
  Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
  Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
      much as you,
  Each has his or her place in the procession.

  (All is a procession,
  The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)

  Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
  Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
      no right to a sight?
  Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
      the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
  For you only, and not for him and her?

       7
  A man's body at auction,
  (For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
  I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

  Gentlemen look on this wonder,
  Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
  For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one
      animal or plant,
  For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd.

  In this head the all-baffling brain,
  In it and below it the makings of heroes.

  Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in
      tendon and nerve,
  They shall be stript that you may see them.

  Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
  Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not 
       flabby, good-sized arms and legs,
  And wonders within there yet.

  Within there runs blood,
  The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
  There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires,
      reachings, aspirations,
  (Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in
      parlors and lecture-rooms?)

  This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be
      fathers in their turns,
  In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
  Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments 
      and enjoyments.

  How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
      through the centuries?
  (Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
      back through the centuries?)

       8
  A woman's body at auction,
  She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
  She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

  Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
  Have you ever loved the body of a man?
  Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations
      and times all over the earth?

  If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
  And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
  And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more
      beautiful than the most beautiful face.

  Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
      that corrupted her own live body?
  For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

       9
  O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and
      women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
  I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of
      the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
  I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
      that they are my poems,
  Man's, woman's, child, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's,
      father's, young man's, young woman's poems,
  Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
  Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
      sleeping of the lids,
  Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-
      hinges,
  Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
  Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-
      slue,
  Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
      ample side-round of the chest,
  Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-
      bones,
  Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
      finger-joints, finger-nails,
  Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, 
      breast-side,
  Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
  Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round,
      man-balls, man-root,
  Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
  Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
  Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
  All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your
      body or of any one's body, male or female,
  The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
  The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
  Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
  Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes 
      from woman,
  The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
      love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
  The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
  Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
  Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and 
      tightening,
  The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
  The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
  The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
      meat of the body,
  The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
  The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
      toward the knees,
  The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
      marrow in the bones,
  The exquisite realization of health;
  O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of 
      the soul,
  O I say now these are the soul!