Page:Leaves of Grass (1882).djvu/102

96 No longer abashed, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere,)

Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest,

Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,

Projecting them along that substantial life,

Bequeathing hence types of athletic love,

Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year,

I proceed for all who are or have been young men,

To tell the secret of my nights and days,

To celebrate the need of comrades.



herbage of my breast,

Leaves from you I glean, I write, to be perused best afterwards,

Tomb-leaves, body-leaves growing up above me above death,

Perennial roots, tall leaves, O the winter shall not freeze you delicate leaves,

Every year shall you bloom again, out from where you retired you shall emerge again;

O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or inhale your faint odor, but I believe a few will;

O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell in your own way of the heart that is under you,

O I do not know what you mean there underneath yourselves, you are not happiness,

You are often more bitter than I can bear, you burn and sting me,

Yet you are beautiful to me you faint tinged roots, you make me think of death,

Death is beautiful from you, (what indeed is finally beautiful except death and love?)

O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers, I think it must be for death,

For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmosphere of lovers,

Death or life I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer,

(I am not sure but the high soul of lovers welcomes death most,)

Indeed O death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as you mean,

Grow up taller sweet leaves that I may see! grow up out of my breast!

Spring away from the conceal'd heart there!

Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots timid leaves!