Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?
I am not afraid .... I have been well brought forward by you;
I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay so long:
I know not how I came of you, and I know not where I go with you .... but I know I came well and shall go well.
I will stop only a time with the night .... and rise betimes.
I will duly pass the day O my mother and duly return to you;
Not you will yield forth the dawn again more surely than you will yield forth me again,
Not the womb yields the babe in its time more surely than I shall be yielded from you in my time.
Leaves of Grass.
The bodies of men and women engirth me, and I engirth them,
They will not let me off nor I them till I go with them and respond to them and love them.
Was it dreamed whether those who corrupted their own live bodies could conceal themselves?
And whether those who defiled the living were as bad as they who defiled the dead?
The expression of the body of man or woman balks account,
The male is perfect and that of the female is perfect.
The expression of a wellmade man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also .... it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk .. the carriage of his neck .. the flex of his waist and knees .... dress does not hide him,