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SCENTED herbage of my breast,
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, youshall emerge again;O I do not know whether many, passing by, will discover you, orinhale your faint odor–but I believe a few will;O slender leaves! O blossoms of…
The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on…
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,One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same,A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable down by the Oconee…
THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm,
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended’st,And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,(Myself a speck, a point on the world’s floating vast.)Far, far at sea,After the night’s fierce drifts have strewn the shores…
WHY! who makes much of a miracle?
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of thewater,Or stand under trees in the woods,Or talk by day with any one I love–or sleep in the bed at night withany one I love,Or…