I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant the chant of dilation or pride, We have had ducking and deprecating about enough, I show that size is only development.

Have you outstript the rest? are you the President? It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.