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2.
From that of myself, without which I were nothing,
From what I am determined to make illustrious, even
if I stand sole among men,
From my own voice resonant—singing the phallus,
Singing the song of procreation,
Singing the need of superb children, and therein
superb grown people,
Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!
O for any and each, the body correlative attracting!
O for you, whoever you are, your correlative body!
O it, more than all else, you delighting!)
From the pent up rivers of myself,
From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,
From native moments—from bashful pains—singing them,
Singing something yet unfound, though I have diligently
sought it, ten thousand years,
Singing the true song of the Soul, fitful, at random,
Singing what, to the Soul, entirely redeemed her, the
faithful one, the prostitute, who detained me when
I went to the city.
Singing the song of prostitutes;
Renascent with grossest Nature, or among animals,
Of that—of them, and what goes with them, my
poems informing,
Of the smell of apples and lemons—of the pairing
of birds,
Of the wet of woods—of the lapping of waves,