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.

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.

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
     laborer's 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