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Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,
No more modest than immodest.
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the current and index.
I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.
Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,
Voices of the diseas’d and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,
Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,
And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff,
And of the rights of them the others are down upon,
Of the deform’d, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.
Through me forbidden voices,
Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil’d and I remove the veil,
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur’d.
I do not press my fingers across my mouth,
I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.
If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it,
Translucent mould of me it shall be you!
Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!
Firm masculine colter it shall be you!
Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!
You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life!
Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you!
My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!
Root of wash’d sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded duplicate eggs! it shall be you!
Mix’d tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!
Sun so generous it shall be you!
Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!
Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you!
Hands I have taken, face I have kiss’d, mortal I have ever touch’d, it shall be you.
I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,
Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy,
I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish,
Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again.
That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be,
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
To behold the day-break!
The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,
The air tastes good to my palate.
Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising freshly exuding,
Scooting obliquely high and low.
Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,
Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.
The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,
The heav’d challenge from the east that moment over my head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!
EXPLANATION WITH CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holyWhatever I touch or am touch'd from,The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.
These lines suggest the sacred element which every part of the body has. There is a halo of sanctity to whatever the poet sees or touches. He considers himself to be divine inside and out. He glorifies the body and soul. He considers them more sacred than the churches, bibles and prayers. It does not mean that the poet is self-centred. While singing of himself, he sings of the entire mankind. While singing of the entire mankind, he glorifies the Maker of the Universe. He automatically sings of the greatness of God.
SUMMARY AND CRITICAL APPRECIATION
The title of the section itself is evidence of the fact that it is autobiographical in nature. His ‘self’ rises to cosmic proportions. He belongs to Manhattan. He calls himself:
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual.
He considers himself one with the others. He is not separate from the rest of humanity. He is not a sentimentalist, but a realist. He is a Democrat. He addresses himself a ‘kosmos’. It conveys so much. He identifies himself with everything in this Universe. His ‘self’ includes all that is there in the Universe. The Universe becomes the self.
He is like any other being-eating, drinking as well as indulging in the pleasures of the senses. He is a non-believer in ancient customs. He does not want the modem man to be a prisoner bound by ancient chains. He wants everyone to “unscrew the locks from the doors”; and “unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs”.
He wants everyone to welcome the new view of a democratic way of life. He wants people to be broad-minded and open-hearted. He identifies himself with the others. He wants this feeling of identification to be reciprocal amongst the human-kind. He becomes the voice
...of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,...of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs....
He asserts their right that they must also get an equal say. That is possible only in a democracy. He recognizes the inherent dignity of every individual.
While describing the individual, he considers the body and the soul equally important. He asserts that every part of the human body is equally important and sacred. The sexual aspect also gets a sacred touch at the hands of the poet. He glorifies copulation as it is the ingredient of procreation. Copulation is as important as death. One is not superior to the other. Death is not the final ending to life, but it is a lease for the next birth, the rebirth. He celebrates all this and says:
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy Whatever I touch or am touch'd from,The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,This head more than churches, bibles and all creeds...
From these lines onward the poet uses sexual images and words describing whatever he sees. He becomes the worshipper of his own body and soul and considers it superior to the churches and bibles. This aspect has made many critics accuse Whitman of pride and arrogance. But his glorification of the body is indirectly the glorification of the divine. He recognizes the greatness of God as witnessed in all the creations in the Universe. In glorifying himself, he glorifies everyone, and automatically he sings of the greatness of the creator-God.
The section concludes with the poet’s vision of the mating of the Earth and sky. He says:
Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongsSeas of bright juice suffuse heaven.
In describing this sacred union, the poet emphasizes the fact that there is nothing indecent and impure in copulation. Thus Whitman shows that sex is something sublime. He is proud of his body and soul. He glorifies the Maker of the Universe. All human aspects, including sex, get a touch of sanctity at the hands of the broad-minded citizen of the world, Walt Whitman.