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9.There is something in staying close to men and
women, and looking on them, and in the contact
and odor of them, that pleases the Soul well,
All things please the Soul—but these please the
Soul well.

10.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,
the atmosphere and the clouds, and what was
expected of heaven or feared 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
juice,
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-fleshed
day.

11.This is the nucleus—after the child is born of
woman, the man is born of woman,