Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu/307

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Enfans d' Adam.
299

Who might you find you have come from yourself, if
you could trace back through the centuries?

27.A woman's body at auction!
She too is not only herself—she is the teeming
mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be
mates to the mothers.

28.Her daughters, or their daughters' daughters—who
knows who shall mate with them?
Who knows through the centuries what heroes may
come from them?

29.In them, and of them, natal love—in them that
divine mystery, the same old beautiful mystery.

30.Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Your father—where is your father?
Your mother—is she living? have you been much
with her? and has she been much with you?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all,
in all nations and times, all over the earth?

31.If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man, is the token of
manhood untainted,
And in man or woman, a clean, strong, firm-fibred
body, is beautiful as the most beautiful face.

32.Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live
body? or the fool that corrupted her own live
body?