I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States,

To one a century hence, or any number of centuries 
hence,

To you, yet unborn, these seeking you.

2 When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;

Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems,
seeking me;

Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you,
and become your loving comrade;

Be it as if I were with you. Be not too certain but I 
am now with you.

4.) Interjection

5.) Metaphor
6.) Subjunctive

The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am 
happy with,

The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,

The hill-side whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain 
ash,

The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, 
drab, purple, and light and dark green,

The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds— 
the private untrimm'd bank—the primitive 
apples—the pebble-stones,

Beautiful dripping fragments—the negligent list of 
one after another, as I happen to call them to 
me, or think of them,

The real poems, (what we call poems being merely 
pictures,)

The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men 
like me,

This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always 
carry, and that all men carry,

(Know, once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are 
men like me, are our lusty, lurking, masculine 
poems;)

Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, 
love-climbers, and the climbing sap,

Arms and hands of love—lips of love—phallic thumb 
of love—breasts of love—bellies press'd and 
glued together with love,

Earth of chaste love—life that is only life after love,

The body of my love—the body of the woman I 
love—the body of the man—the body of the 
earth,

Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,

The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and 
down—that gripes the full-grown lady-flower, 
curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes 
his will of her, and holds himself tremulous 
and tight till he is satisfied,

The wet of woods through the early hours,

Two sleepers at night lying close together as they 
sleep, one with an arm slanting down across 
and below the waist of the other,

The smell of apples, aromas from crush'd sage-plant, 
mint, birch-bark,

The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he con-
fides to me what he was dreaming,

The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl, and falling 
still and content to the ground,

The no-form'd stings that sights, people, objects, sting 
me with,

The hubb'd sting of myself, stinging me as much as it 
ever can any one,

The sensitive, orbic, underlapp'd brothers, that only 
privileged feelers may be intimate where they 
are,

The curious roamer, the hand, roaming all over the 
body—the bashful withdrawing of flesh where 
the fingers soothingly pause and edge them-
selves,

The limpid liquid within the young man,

The vexed corrosion, so pensive and so painful,

The torment—the irritable tide that will not be at rest,

The like of the same I feel—the like of the same in 
others,

The young man that flushes and flushes, and the 
young woman that flushes and flushes,

The young man that wakes, deep at night, the hot 
hand seeking to repress what would master 
him;

The mystic amorous night—the strange half-welcome 
pangs, visions, sweats,

The pulse pounding through palms and trembling 
encircling fingers—the young man all color'd, 
red, ashamed, angry;

The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing 
and naked,

The merriment of the twin-babes that crawl over the 
grass in the sun, the mother never turning her 
vigilant eyes from them,

The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening 
or ripen'd long-round walnuts;

The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,

The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find 
myself indecent, while birds and animals never 
once skulk or find themselves indecent;

The great chastity of paternity, to match the great 
chastity of maternity,

The oath of procreation I have sworn—my Adamic 
and fresh daughters,

The greed that eats me day and night with hungry 
gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to 
fill my place when I am through,

The wholesome relief, repose, content;

And this bunch, pluck'd at random from myself;

It has done its work—I toss it carelessly to fall where 
it may.