I Celebrate Myself
2009 September 4
Walt Whitman, from the first page of Leaves of Grass, written here in Brooklyn in 1855:
I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease….observing a spear of summer grass.Houses and rooms are full of perfumes….the shelves are crowded
with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it.
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.The atmosphere is not a perfume….it has no taste of the distillation
….it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever….I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
(from the edition by Gary Schmidgall)
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