WEBVTT 00:00:09.232 --> 00:00:10.874 Hi, I'm Alicia. 00:00:10.874 --> 00:00:15.442 I'm reading "Song of Myself" from "Leaves of Grass", by Walt Whitman. 00:00:21.089 --> 00:00:22.983 I celebrate myself, 00:00:22.983 --> 00:00:24.974 And what I assume you shell assume, 00:00:24.974 --> 00:00:28.087 For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 00:00:29.594 --> 00:00:31.333 I loafe and invite my soul, 00:00:31.333 --> 00:00:36.145 I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 00:00:37.069 --> 00:00:40.205 Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, 00:00:40.344 --> 00:00:42.947 the shelves are crowded with perfumes, 00:00:42.947 --> 00:00:46.822 I breathe the fragrance myself and I know it and like it, 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:51.450 The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. 00:00:52.773 --> 00:00:58.224 The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless, 00:00:58.809 --> 00:01:01.383 It is for my mouth forever, 00:01:01.998 --> 00:01:04.129 I am in love with it, 00:01:04.252 --> 00:01:08.401 I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked, 00:01:08.540 --> 00:01:11.716 I am mad for it to be in contact with me. 00:01:11.854 --> 00:01:14.504 The smoke of my own breath, 00:01:14.504 --> 00:01:17.398 Echoes, ripples, the buzz’d whispers, 00:01:17.398 --> 00:01:21.369 love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine, 00:01:22.138 --> 00:01:26.256 My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, 00:01:26.394 --> 00:01:30.124 the passing of blood and air through my lungs, 00:01:30.124 --> 00:01:33.237 The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, 00:01:33.237 --> 00:01:37.662 and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and the hay in the barn, 00:01:37.662 --> 00:01:42.929 The sound of the belch’d words of my voice, words loos’d to the eddies of the wind, 00:01:42.929 --> 00:01:46.472 A few light kisses, a few embraces, 00:01:46.472 --> 00:01:48.931 a reaching around of arms, 00:01:48.931 --> 00:01:53.221 The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag, 00:01:53.221 --> 00:01:56.271 The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, 00:01:56.271 --> 00:01:58.803 or along the fields and hill-sides, 00:01:59.003 --> 00:02:01.139 The feeling of health, 00:02:01.308 --> 00:02:06.152 the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun. 00:02:06.291 --> 00:02:09.370 Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? 00:02:09.370 --> 00:02:11.669 have you reckon’d the earth much? 00:02:11.669 --> 00:02:17.378 Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? 00:02:17.502 --> 00:02:22.443 Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, 00:02:22.582 --> 00:02:27.094 You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,) 00:02:27.263 --> 00:02:31.227 You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, 00:02:31.227 --> 00:02:35.751 nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, 00:02:35.920 --> 00:02:39.747 You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, 00:02:39.885 --> 00:02:43.569 You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self. 00:02:45.522 --> 00:02:50.899 I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, 00:02:51.237 --> 00:02:53.763 But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. 00:02:53.886 --> 00:02:57.357 There was never any more inception than there is now, 00:02:57.495 --> 00:03:01.637 Nor any more youth or age than there is now, 00:03:04.728 --> 00:03:07.854 And will never be any more perfection than there is now, 00:03:07.854 --> 00:03:10.973 Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. 00:03:11.250 --> 00:03:14.203 Urge and urge and urge, 00:03:14.372 --> 00:03:17.175 Always the procreant urge of the world. 00:03:17.743 --> 00:03:21.333 Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, 00:03:21.333 --> 00:03:23.716 always substance and increase, 00:03:23.716 --> 00:03:26.112 Always a knit of identity, 00:03:26.112 --> 00:03:28.040 always distinction, 00:03:28.040 --> 00:03:30.036 always a breed of life. 00:03:30.944 --> 00:03:32.978 To elaborate is no avail, 00:03:32.978 --> 00:03:35.620 learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so. 00:03:35.836 --> 00:03:41.794 Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams, 00:03:41.948 --> 00:03:45.203 Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, 00:03:45.356 --> 00:03:48.036 I and this mystery here we stand. 00:03:48.174 --> 00:03:50.342 Clear and sweet is my soul, 00:03:50.342 --> 00:03:54.033 and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul. 00:03:54.033 --> 00:03:57.368 Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, 00:03:57.368 --> 00:04:01.079 Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. 00:04:01.279 --> 00:04:06.001 Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age, 00:04:06.216 --> 00:04:09.674 Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, 00:04:09.674 --> 00:04:14.901 while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself. 00:04:16.594 --> 00:04:21.533 Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean, 00:04:21.533 --> 00:04:24.584 Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, 00:04:24.584 --> 00:04:27.649 and none shall be less familiar than the rest. 00:04:28.449 --> 00:04:32.506 I am satisfied — I see, dance, laugh, sing; 00:04:33.106 --> 00:04:37.100 As God comes a loving bedfellow and sleeps at my side 00:04:37.362 --> 00:04:40.489 all night and close on the peep of the day 00:04:40.643 --> 00:04:44.146 And leaves for me baskets cover’d with white towels 00:04:44.146 --> 00:04:46.736 bulging the house with their plenty, 00:04:46.736 --> 00:04:52.578 Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes, 00:04:52.809 --> 00:04:55.652 That they turn from gazing after and down the road, 00:04:55.652 --> 00:04:59.167 And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent, 00:04:59.444 --> 00:05:06.533 Exactly the contents of one and exactly the contents of two, and which is ahead? 00:05:09.487 --> 00:05:12.439 Trippers and askers surround me, 00:05:12.778 --> 00:05:18.513 People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life and the ward and the city I live in, 00:05:18.513 --> 00:05:20.522 of the nation, 00:05:20.522 --> 00:05:23.454 The latest news, discoveries, 00:05:23.454 --> 00:05:26.690 inventions, societies, authors old and new, 00:05:27.198 --> 00:05:32.326 My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business, compliments, dues, 00:05:32.665 --> 00:05:36.942 The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love, 00:05:37.327 --> 00:05:40.686 The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, 00:05:40.686 --> 00:05:42.687 or ill-doing 00:05:42.687 --> 00:05:44.889 or loss or lack of money, 00:05:45.320 --> 00:05:48.892 or depressions or exaltations, 00:05:49.215 --> 00:05:52.327 They come to me days and nights and go from me again, 00:05:52.327 --> 00:05:54.426 But they are not the Me myself. 00:05:58.350 --> 00:06:01.844 Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, 00:06:01.844 --> 00:06:07.079 Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, 00:06:07.603 --> 00:06:09.695 Looks down, is erect, 00:06:11.788 --> 00:06:15.516 bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, 00:06:15.731 --> 00:06:20.509 Looks with its side-curved head curious what will come next, 00:06:20.509 --> 00:06:24.880 Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. 00:06:31.865 --> 00:06:37.726 Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, 00:06:37.726 --> 00:06:41.849 I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait. 00:06:43.157 --> 00:06:48.287 I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, 00:06:48.287 --> 00:06:50.508 And you must not be abased to the other. 00:06:51.278 --> 00:06:53.279 Loafe with me on the grass, 00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:55.297 loose the stop from your throat, 00:06:56.236 --> 00:06:58.688 Not words, not music or rhyme I want, 00:06:58.688 --> 00:07:01.497 not custom or lecture, not even the best, 00:07:03.097 --> 00:07:06.790 Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. 00:07:08.529 --> 00:07:12.902 I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent summer morning; 00:07:15.241 --> 00:07:20.097 You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me, 00:07:21.682 --> 00:07:27.551 And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, 00:07:27.551 --> 00:07:32.498 And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet. 00:07:37.699 --> 00:07:44.938 Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth, 00:07:44.938 --> 00:07:48.215 And I knwow that the hand of God is the the elderhand of my own, 00:07:48.215 --> 00:07:50.270 And I know that the spirit of God 00:07:51.195 --> 00:07:53.566 is the eldest brother of my own 00:07:53.797 --> 00:07:57.476 And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, 00:07:58.569 --> 00:08:02.037 and the women my sisters and lovers, 00:08:02.037 --> 00:08:04.714 And that a kelson of the creation is love, 00:08:05.345 --> 00:08:08.829 And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, 00:08:08.829 --> 00:08:13.104 And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, 00:08:13.104 --> 00:08:19.219 And mossy scabs of the worm fence, and heap’d stones, and elder and mullein and poke-weed. 00:08:21.004 --> 00:08:25.899 A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; 00:08:26.637 --> 00:08:29.038 How could I answer the child? 00:08:29.422 --> 00:08:32.133 I do not know what it is any more than he. 00:08:34.595 --> 00:08:39.485 I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. 00:08:40.731 --> 00:08:43.545 Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, 00:08:43.699 --> 00:08:47.982 A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, 00:08:55.122 --> 00:09:00.875 Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? 00:09:02.199 --> 00:09:06.945 Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. 00:09:09.022 --> 00:09:11.650 Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, 00:09:12.727 --> 00:09:16.878 And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, 00:09:17.294 --> 00:09:20.115 Growing among black folks as among white, 00:09:20.900 --> 00:09:27.108 Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same. 00:09:29.232 --> 00:09:33.249 And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. 00:09:35.957 --> 00:09:38.569 Tenderly will I use you curling grass, 00:09:38.831 --> 00:09:42.280 It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, 00:09:44.234 --> 00:09:47.291 It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, 00:09:47.383 --> 00:09:53.432 It may be you are from old people, and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps, 00:09:55.540 --> 00:09:57.499 And here you are the mothers’ laps. 00:09:58.530 --> 00:10:01.967 This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, 00:10:09.523 --> 00:10:12.102 Darker than the colorless beards of old men, 00:10:12.256 --> 00:10:16.832 Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. 00:10:19.617 --> 00:10:22.983 O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, 00:10:22.983 --> 00:10:27.170 And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. 00:11:21.637 --> 00:11:22.810 Done. 00:11:22.886 --> 00:11:25.274 Alicia. "Leaves of Grass". 00:11:34.614 --> 00:11:35.970 Hey...