I sing the body electric!
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
     balks account,  That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made 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,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

The sprawl and fullness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
     folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
   contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
     the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
     silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
     horse-man in his saddle, Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open  dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or
     cow-yard,
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
     horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
     good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown
     after work,  The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
     muscle through clean-setting trousers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
     suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd
     neck and the counting; Such-like I love--I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's
     breast with the little child, Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
     the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction, 
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
     all falls aside but myself and it, 
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
     was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
     likewise ungovernable, Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
     diffused, mine too diffused, Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
     and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
     love, white-blow and delirious nice.  Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
     prostrate dawn, Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.

This the nucleus--after the child is born of woman, man is born
     of woman.  This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
     outlet again.   Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
     exit of the rest.  You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
     nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the
     soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
     that they are my poems,
Man's, woman's, child, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's,
     father's, young man's, young woman's poems,
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of
     the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!!!