Song of Myself

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.


There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.


Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.


Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
That that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.


Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.


Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.


Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?



-Walt Whitman