From
Leaves of Grass, by
Walt Whitman:
Not heaving from my ribb'd
breast only,
Not in sighs at night in
rage dissatisfied with myself,
Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs,
Not in many an
oath and promise broken,
Not in my wilful and
savage soul's
volition,
Not in the subtle nourishment of the air,
Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists,
Not in the curious
systole and
diastole within which will one
day cease,
Not in many a hungry wish told to the skies only,
Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone
far in the wilds,
Not in husky pantings through clinch'd teeth,
Not in sounded and resounded words, chattering words,
echoes, dead words,
Not in the murmurs of my
dreams while I sleep,
Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every
day,
Nor in the limbs and senses of my body that take you and
dismiss you continually — not there,
Not in any or all of them O
adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
Need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in
these songs.