Leaves of Grass, a Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1855-1856

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul; I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, hoping to cease not till death.

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 valvèd voice. I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine. I take to the open air, to the farm, the ocean, the woods, the city streets, to every season and every hour, and find my delight in all. I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul.

The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem, a teeming nation of nations, where to be a poet is to be commensurate with a people. I wander all night in my vision, seeing the endless processions of men and women, of trades and crafts, of families and lovers, of the living and the dead. I see the carpenter, the pilot, the mother, the slave, the bride, the prostitute, the President, the common folk – all are divine, all are equal, all contain multitudes. My voice is the sound of the American spirit, wild and untamed, a barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

I sing the body electric, the procreant urge of the world. The human form, male and female, is sacred and beautiful, every organ, every limb, every function a miracle. I exalt nature, celebrating the senses and sexual love as part of the divine plan, a natural expression of life's continuous flow. What is common I make uncommon, what is low I lift high, for there is nothing in this world that does not hold a piece of the infinite.

I perceive in the grass not just a simple blade, but the beautiful uncut hair of graves, a symbol of endless renewal, of life springing from death. 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, but always forward and in motion. The rough and sensuous world, with all its joys and sorrows, its struggles and triumphs, is a testament to the ongoing cycle of existence.

To think of time, to think through it, to pierce the veil of what was and what will be, and to know that all is now, all is here. I am large, I contain multitudes. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding. No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love; if you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, but I shall be good health to you nevertheless, and filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.