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Rh 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.

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,
 * the atmosphere and the clouds, and what was
 * expected of heaven or feared 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
 * 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-fleshed
 * day.

This is the nucleus—after the child is born of
 * woman, the man is born of woman,