In homage to the release of T R O P I C O last week, i thought it necessary for context to publish the full poem, written by Walt Whitman, which our dear Lana recites an excerpt from as she writhes around our screens...enjoy.
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 under-hold,
the hair rumpled over and blinding the 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 I 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-fibred 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 marrow 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!
