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1

I sing the body electric,
 The armies of those I love engirth me 
   and I engirth them,
 They will not let me off till I go with them, 
   respond to them,
 And discorrupt them, and charge them full 
   with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt 
   their own bodies conceal themselves?
 And if those who defile the living are as bad
   as they who defile the dead?
 And if the body does not do fully
   as much as the soul?
 And if the body were not the soul,
   what is the soul?

2

The love of the body of man or woman
   balks account, the body itself balks,
   account,
 That of the male is perfect, and that of
   the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,
 But the expression of a well-made man
   appears not only in his face,
 It is in his limbs and joints also, it is
   curiously in the joints of his hips and
   wrists,
 It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the
   flex of his waist and knees, dress does not
   hide him,
 The strong sweet quality he has strikes
   through the cotton and broadcloth,
 To see him pass conveys as much as the best
   poem, perhaps more,
 You linger to see his back, and the back of
   his neck and shoulder-side. 

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms
   and heads of women, the folds of their
   dress, their style as we pass in the street,
   the contour of their shape downwards,
 The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath,
   seen as he swims through the transparent
   green-shine, or lies with his face up and
   rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the
   water,
 The bending forward and backward of 
   rowers in row-boats, the horseman in his
   saddle,
 Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their
   performances,
 The group of laborers seated at noon-time
   with their open dinner-kettles, and their
   wives waiting,
 The female soothing a child, the farmer's 
   daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
 The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-
   driver driving his six horses through the
   crowd,
 The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-
   boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured,
   native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-
   down after work,
 The coats and caps thrown down, the 
   embrace of love and resistance,
 The upper-hold and the under-hold, the hair
   rumpled over and blinding their eyes;
 The march of firemen in their own
   costumes, the play of masculine muscle
   through clean-setting trowsers and waist-
   straps,
 The slow return from the fire, the pause
   when the bell strikes suddenly again, and
   the listening on the alert,
 The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the 
   bent head, the curv'd neck and the 
   counting;
 Such-like I love -- I loosen myself, pass
   freely, am at the mother's breast with the
   little child,
 Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with
   wrestlers, march in line with the firemen,
   and pause, listen, count.

3

I knew a man, a common farmer, the father 
   of five sons,
 And in them the fathers of sons, and in 
   them the fathers of sons.

This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness,
   beauty of person,
 The shape of his head, the pale yellow and
   white of his hair and beard, the
   immeasurable meaning of his black eyes,
   the richness and breadth of his manners,
 These I used to go and visit him to see, he 
   was wise also,
 He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years
   old, his sons were massive, clean, 
   bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
 They and his daughters loved him, all who
   saw him loved him,
 They did not love him by allowance, they
   loved him with personal love,
 He drank water only, the blood show'd like
   scarlet through the clear-brown skin of 
   his face,
 He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he
   sail'd his boat himself, he had a fine one
   presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
   fowling-pieces presented to him by men
   that loved him,
 When he went with his five sons and many
   grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would
   pick him out as the most beautiful and 
   vigorous of the gang,
 You would wish long and long to be with
   him, you would wish to sit by him in the 
   boat that you and he might touch each
   other. 

4

I have perceiv'd that to be with those l like
   is enough,
 To stop in company with the rest at evening
   is enough,
 To be surrounded by beautiful, curious,
   breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
 To pass among them or touch any one, or
   rest my arm ever so lightly round his or  
   her neck for a moment, what is this then?
 I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it 
   as in a sea.

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. 

5

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, and what was expected of
   heaven or fear'd 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-
   flesh'd day.

This the nucleus -- after the child is born of
   woman, man is born of woman,
 This the bath of birth, this the merge of
   small and large, and the outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege
   encloses the rest, and is the exit of the 
   rest,
 You are the gates of the body, and you are
   the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and
   tempers them,
 She is in her place and moves with perfect
   balance,
 She is all things duly veil'd, she is both
   passive and active,
 She is to conceive daughters as well as sons,
   and sons as well as daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
 As I see through a mist, One with
   inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
 See the bent head and arms folded over the
   breast, the Female I see.

6

The male is not less the soul nor more, he
   too is in his place,
 He too is all qualities, he is action and 
   power,
 The flush of the known universe is in him,
 Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and 
   defiance become him well,
 The wildest largest passions, bliss that is
   utmost, sorrow that is utmost become
   him well, pride is for him,
 The full-spread pride of man is calming and
   excellent to the soul, 
 Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always,
   he brings every thing to the test of 
   himself,
 Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and
   the sail he strikes soundings at last only 
   here,
 (Where else does he strike soundings except
   here?)

The man's body is sacred and the woman's 
   body is sacred,
 No matter who it is, it is sacred -- is it the
   meanest one in the laborers' gang?
 Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just
   landed on the wharf?
 Each belongs here or anywhere just as much
   as the well-off, just as much as you,
 Each has his or her place in the procession.

(All is a procession,
 The universe is a procession with measured
   and perfect motion.)

Do you know so much yourself that you call
   the meanest ignorant?
 Do you suppose you have a right to a good
   sight, and he or she has no right to a
   sight?
 Do you think matter has cohered together
   from its diffuse float, and the soil is on
   the surface, and water runs and 
   vegetation sprouts,
 For you only, and not for him and her?

7

A man's body at auction,
 (For before the war I often go to the slave-
     mart and watch the sale,)
 I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not 
     half know his business.

Gentlemen look on this wonder,
 Whatever the bids of the bidders they
     cannot be high enough for it,
 For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of
     years without one animal or plant,
 For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily 
     roll'd.

In this head the all-baffling brain,
 In it and below it the makings of heroes.
 
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white,
     they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
 They shall be stript that you may see them.

Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
 Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone
     and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized
     arms and legs,
 And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs blood,
 The same old blood! the same red-running
     blood!
 There swells and jets a heart, there all
     passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
 (Do you think they are not there because
     they are not express'd in parlors and 
     lecture-rooms?)

This is not only one man, this the father of
     those who shall be fathers in their turns,
 In him the start of populous states and rich
     republics,
 Of him countless immortal lives with
     countless embodiments and enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the
     offspring of his offspring through the
     centuries?
 (Who might you find you have come from
     yourself, if you could trace back through
     the centuries?)

8

A woman's body at auction,
 She too is not only herself, she is the
      teeming mother of mothers,
 She is the bearer of them that shall grow
      and be mates to the mothers.

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
 Have you ever loved the body of a man?
 Do you not see that these are exactly the
      same to all in all nations and times all
      over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is
      sacred,
 And the glory and sweet of a man is the 
      token of manhood untainted,
 And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-
      fibered body, is more beautiful than the
      most beautiful face.

Have you seen the fool that corrupted his
       own live body? or the fool that corrupted
       her own live body?
 For they do not conceal themselves, and 
       cannot conceal themselves.

9

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of
   you in other men and women, nor the
   likes of the parts of you,
 I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall
   with the likes of the soul, (and that they 
   are the soul,)
 I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall
   with my poems, and that they are my 
   poems,
 Man's, woman's, child's, youth's, wife's,
   husband's, mother's, father's, young
   man's, young woman's poems,
 Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of 
   the ears, 
 Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows,
   and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
 Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the 
   mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
 Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
 Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat,
   back of the neck, neck-slue,
 Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula,
   hind-shoulders, and the ample side-
   round of the chest,
 Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-
   arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
 Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm,
   knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints,
   finger-nails,
 Broad breast-front, curling hair of the
   breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
 Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the
   backbone,
 Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and
   outward round, man-balls, man-root,
 Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk
   above,
 Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg,
   under-leg,
 Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the
   heel;
 All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the
   belongings of my or your body or of any
   one's body, male or female,
 The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the 
   bowels sweet and clean,
 The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
 Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves,
   sexuality, maternity,
 Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and 
   the man that comes from woman,
 The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk,
   tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-
   perturbations and risings,
 The voice, articulation, language,
   whispering, shouting aloud,
 Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep,
   walking, swimming,
 Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining,
   embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
 The continual changes of the flex of the 
   mouth, and around the eyes,
 The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
 The curious sympathy one feels when 
    feeling with the hand the naked meat of
    the body,
 The circling rivers the breath, and breathing
    it in and out,
 The beauty of the waist, and thence of the
    hips, and thence downward toward the 
    knees,
 The thin red jellies within you or within
    me, the bones and the morrow in the
    bones,
 The exquisite realization of health;
 O I say these are not the parts and poems of
    the body only, but of the soul,
 O I say now these are the soul!