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Home: Poetry: Walt Whitman: A Woman Waits for Me
| A WOMAN WAITS FOR ME |
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a poem by Walt Whitman
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- A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking,
- Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.
- Sex contains all, bodies, souls,
- Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
- Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,
- All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves,
- beauties, delights of the earth,
- All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth,
- These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself.
- Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex,
- Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.
- Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
- I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me,
- I see that they understand me and do not deny me,
- I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of those women.
- They are not one jot less than I am,
- They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
- Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
- They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
- They are ultimate in their own right--they are calm, clear, well-possess'd of themselves.
- I draw you close to me, you women,
- I cannot let you go, I would do you good,
- I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others' sakes,
- Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
- They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.
- It is I, you women, I make my way,
- I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you,
- I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,
- I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States, I press with slow rude muscle,
- I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,
- I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me.
- Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,
- In you I wrap a thousand onward years,
- On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,
- The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers,
- The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,
- I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,
- I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you inter-penetrate now,
- I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,
- I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now.
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| "A Woman Waits for Me" is reprinted from Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman. Brooklyn: Fowler & Wells, 1856. |
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