From
Leaves of Grass, by
Walt Whitman:
One hour to
madness and
joy! O
furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid
lightnings and raging winds mean?)
O to drink the
mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O
savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you, my children,
I tell them to you, for reasons, O
bridegroom and
bride.)
O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me in
defiance of the world!
O to return to
Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the
lips of a determin'd man.
O the puzzle, the thrice-tied
knot, the deep and dark pool, all untied and illumin'd!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and you from yours!
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!
To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.
O something unprov'd! something in a
trance!
To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love
free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court
destruction with taunts, with invitations!
To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my
inebriate soul!
To be lost if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one
hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.