I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855

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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 as much as the Soul?
And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?
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The love of the Body of man or woman balks accountthe 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 kneesdress does not
hide him;
The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel;
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 fro in the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boatsthe horseman 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 childthe farmers daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
The young fellow hoeing cornthe sleigh-driver guiding his six horses through the
crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, nativeborn, 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 the under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;

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The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through cleansetting 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 attitudesthe bent head, the curvd neck, and the counting;
Such-like I loveI loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mothers breast with the little
child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and
pause, listen, and count.

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I know a man, a common farmerthe father of five sons;
And in them were the fathers of sonsand in them were the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person;
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, and the
immeasurable meaning of his black eyesthe richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to seehe was wise also;
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years oldhis sons were massive, clean, bearded,
tan-faced, handsome;
They and his daughters loved himall who saw him loved him;
They did not love him by allowancethey loved him with personal love;
He drank water onlythe blood showd like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his
face;
He was a frequent gunner and fisherhe saild his boat himselfhe had a fine one
presented to him by a ship-joinerhe 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.

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You would wish long and long to be with himyou would wish to sit by him in the boat,
that you and he might touch each other.
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I have perceivd 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 momentwhat is this, then?
I do not ask any more delightI 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 soulbut these please the soul well.

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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 vaporall falls aside but
myself and it;
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, the atmosphere and the clouds, and
what was expected of heaven or feard of hell, are now consumed;
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of itthe response likewise ungovernable;
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands, all diffusedmine too diffused;
Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebblove-flesh swelling and deliciously
aching;
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and
delirious juice;
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-fleshd day.
This is the nucleusafter the child is born of woman, the man is born of woman;
This is the bath of birththis is the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.

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Be not ashamed, womenyour 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 themshe is in her place, and moves with
perfect balance;
She is all things duly veildshe is both passive and active;
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.

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As I see my soul reflected in nature;

As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible completeness and beauty,
See the bent head, and arms folded over the breastthe female I see.
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The male is not less the soul, nor morehe too is in his place;
He too is all qualitieshe 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 himhe likes it alwayshe brings everything to the test of himself;
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail, he strikes soundings at last only here;

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(Where else does he strike soundings, except here?)

The mans body is sacred, and the womans body is sacred;
No matter who it is, it is sacred;
Is it a slave? Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere, just as much as the well-offjust as much as you;
Each has his or her place in the procession.

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(All is a procession;
The universe is a procession, with measured and beautiful motion.)
Do you know so much yourself, that you call the slave or the dull-face 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 floatand the soil is on the
surface, and water runs, and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?

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A mans Body at auction;
I help the auctioneerthe sloven does not half know his business.

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

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Examine these limbs, red, black, or whitethey are so 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 back-bone 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 heartthere all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations;
Do you think they are not there because they are not expressd in parlors and lecturerooms?
This is not only one manthis is the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns;

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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?

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A womans Body at auction!
She too is not only herselfshe 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?
Your fatherwhere is your father?
Your motheris she living? have you been much with her? and has she been much with
you?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all, in all nations and times, all over
the earth?

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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 beautiful as the most beautiful
face.

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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.
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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 poemsand that they are poems,
Mans, womans, childs, youths, wifes, husbands, mothers, fathers, young mans,
young womans poems;
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eye-brows, 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

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chest.
Upper-arm, arm-pit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, fore-finger, finger-balls, fingerjoints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, back-bone, joints of the back-bone,
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 ones
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 womanand the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, loveperturbations 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 sun-burnt 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 methe 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!

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