Leaves of Grass First and Death-Bed Editions by Walt Whitman Page B

dress, associates, looks, business, 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,
They come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself. 8
     
    Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looks with its sidecurved 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 we lay in June, such a transparent summer
morning;
You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your
tongue to my barestript heart,
And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my
feet.
     
    Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and
knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth;
And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest 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 wormfence, and heaped stones, and elder
and mullen and pokeweed. 9
     
    A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child? .... I do not know what it is any
more than he.
     
    I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
     
    Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may
see and remark, and say Whose?
     
    Or I guess the grass is itself a child.... the produced babe of the vegetation.
     
    Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, c I give them the same,
I receive them the same.
     
    And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
     
    Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and from
offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.
     
    This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
     
    O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.
     
    I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.
     
    What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
     
    They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
    All goes onward and outward.... and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from