SONG OF MYSELF – WALT WHITMAN(2)

I exist as I am,that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and
that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten
thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal
cheerfulness I can wait.

My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.

I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the soul,

The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains
of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself…..the
later I translate into a new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is great to be a woman as to be a
man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother
of men.
—Edited by Stephen Mitchell