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24
Leaves of Grass.

5.The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzzed whispers, love-root, silk-
thread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my
heart, the passing of blood and air through my
lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the
shore, and dark-colored sea-rocks, and of hay in
the barn,
The sound of the belched words of my voice, words
loosed to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around
of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple
boughs wag,
The delight alone, or in the rush of the streets, or
along the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of
me rising from bed and meeting the sun.

6.Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have
you reckoned the earth much?
Have you practised so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of
poems?

7.Stop this day and night with me, and you shall
possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun—
there are millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third
hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books,