"I Sing the Body Electric" is a poem from the American writer Walt Whitman's magnum opus, Leaves of Grass. In this poem, a speaker sings the praises of the human body. The body, he says, is nothing less than a miracle: wonderful beyond description, it gives people their own distinct identity and connects them to every other person alive. To have a body, this speaker proclaims, is to be a part of a beautiful, ordered, and joyful universe. Whitman first published Leaves of Grass in 1855, and he would revise and revisit it many times before his death in 1892; the version of the poem this guide examines comes from the 1867 edition.
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The Full Text of “I Sing the Body Electric”
1
1I sing the body electric,
2The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
3They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
4And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
5Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
6And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
7And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
8And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
2
9The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
10That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
11The expression of the face balks account,
12But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
13It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
14It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
15The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
16To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
17You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
18The sprawl and fulness 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,
19The 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 fro in the heave of the water,
20The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the horseman in his saddle,
21Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
22The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
23The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
24The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd,
25The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-down after work,
26The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
27The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
28The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
29The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
30The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck and the counting;
31Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child,
32Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
3
33I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
34And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
35This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
36The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners,
37These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
38He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
39They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
40They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
41He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face,
42He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
43When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
44You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
4
45I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
46To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
47To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
48To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
49I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
50There 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,
51All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
5
52This is the female form,
53A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
54It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
55I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
56Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
57Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
58Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
59Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
60Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
61Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
62Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
63Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
64This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
65This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.
66Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest,
67You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
68The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
69She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
70She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
71She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
72As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
73As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
74See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
6
75The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
76He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
77The flush of the known universe is in him,
78Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
79The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well, pride is for him,
80The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
81Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to the test of himself,
82Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes soundings at last only here,
83(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)
84The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
85No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers’ gang?
86Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
87Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
88Each has his or her place in the procession.
89(All is a procession,
90The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)
91Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
92Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?
93Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
94For you only, and not for him and her?
7
95A man’s body at auction,
96(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
97I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
98Gentlemen look on this wonder,
99Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
100For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
101For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.
102In this head the all-baffling brain,
103In it and below it the makings of heroes.
104Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
105They shall be stript that you may see them.
106Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
107Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,
108And wonders within there yet.
109Within there runs blood,
110The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
111There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
112(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?)
113This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,
114In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
115Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
116How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?
117(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?)
8
118A woman’s body at auction,
119She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
120She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
121Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
122Have you ever loved the body of a man?
123Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?
124If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
125And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
126And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face.
127Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
128For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9
129O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
130I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
131I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
132Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
133Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
134Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
135Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
136Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
137Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
138Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,
139Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
140Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,
141Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
142Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
143Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
144Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
145Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
146Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
147All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female,
148The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
149The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
150Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
151Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
152The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
153The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
154Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
155Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
156The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
157The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
158The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
159The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
160The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
161The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
162The exquisite realization of health;
163O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
164O I say now these are the soul!
The Full Text of “I Sing the Body Electric”
1
1I sing the body electric,
2The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
3They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
4And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
5Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
6And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
7And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
8And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
2
9The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
10That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
11The expression of the face balks account,
12But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
13It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
14It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
15The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
16To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
17You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
18The sprawl and fulness 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,
19The 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 fro in the heave of the water,
20The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the horseman in his saddle,
21Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
22The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
23The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
24The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd,
25The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-down after work,
26The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
27The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
28The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
29The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
30The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck and the counting;
31Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child,
32Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
3
33I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
34And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
35This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
36The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners,
37These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
38He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
39They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
40They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
41He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face,
42He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
43When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
44You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
4
45I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
46To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
47To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
48To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
49I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
50There 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,
51All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
5
52This is the female form,
53A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
54It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
55I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
56Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
57Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
58Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
59Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
60Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
61Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
62Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
63Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
64This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
65This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.
66Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest,
67You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
68The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
69She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
70She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
71She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
72As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
73As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
74See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
6
75The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
76He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
77The flush of the known universe is in him,
78Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
79The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well, pride is for him,
80The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
81Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to the test of himself,
82Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes soundings at last only here,
83(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)
84The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
85No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers’ gang?
86Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
87Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
88Each has his or her place in the procession.
89(All is a procession,
90The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)
91Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
92Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?
93Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
94For you only, and not for him and her?
7
95A man’s body at auction,
96(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
97I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
98Gentlemen look on this wonder,
99Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
100For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
101For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.
102In this head the all-baffling brain,
103In it and below it the makings of heroes.
104Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
105They shall be stript that you may see them.
106Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
107Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,
108And wonders within there yet.
109Within there runs blood,
110The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
111There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
112(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?)
113This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,
114In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
115Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
116How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?
117(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?)
8
118A woman’s body at auction,
119She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
120She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
121Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
122Have you ever loved the body of a man?
123Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?
124If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
125And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
126And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face.
127Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
128For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9
129O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
130I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
131I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
132Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
133Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
134Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
135Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
136Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
137Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
138Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,
139Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
140Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,
141Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
142Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
143Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
144Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
145Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
146Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
147All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female,
148The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
149The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
150Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
151Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
152The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
153The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
154Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
155Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
156The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
157The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
158The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
159The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
160The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
161The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
162The exquisite realization of health;
163O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
164O I say now these are the soul!
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“I Sing the Body Electric” Summary
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“I Sing the Body Electric” Themes
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The Body as the Soul
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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The Connection Between Humanity and the Universe
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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The Beauty of Sex
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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The Evils of Slavery
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “I Sing the Body Electric”
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Lines 1-4
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. -
Lines 5-8
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul? -
Lines 9-10
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. -
Lines 11-17
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. -
Lines 18-24
The sprawl and fulness 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 fro in the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the horseman 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 hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd, -
Lines 25-30
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-down 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 trowsers 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; -
Lines 31-32
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. -
Lines 33-40
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love, -
Lines 38-44
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other. -
Lines 45-51
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
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. -
Lines 50-51
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. -
Lines 52-58
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, -
Lines 59-63
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-flesh’d day. -
Lines 64-67
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. -
Lines 68-74
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see. -
Lines 75-83
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?) -
Lines 84-90
The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.) -
Lines 91-94
Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her? -
Lines 95-103
A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.
In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes. -
Lines 104-112
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.
Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?) -
Lines 113-117, Between Lines 117-118, Lines 118-120
This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?)
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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. -
Lines 121-128
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?
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 more beautiful than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves. -
Lines 129-132
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’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems, -
Lines 133-147
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female, -
Lines 148-162
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health; -
Lines 163-164
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!
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“I Sing the Body Electric” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Aporia
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Apostrophe
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Asyndeton
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End-Stopped Line
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Irony
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Imagery
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Repetition
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Metaphor
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Simile
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Parallelism
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Anaphora
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“I Sing the Body Electric” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Engirth
- Discorrupt
- Defile
- Balks Account
- Carriage
- Broadcloth
- Fulness
- Dinner-Kettles
- Upper-hold and Under-hold
- Trowsers
- Vigor
- By Allowance
- Ship-joiner
- Fowling-pieces
- Nimbus
- Vapor
- Filament
- Ungovernable
- Shoots
- Negligent
- Diffused
- Ebb Stung By the Flow
- Limpid
- White-blow and Delirious Juice
- Delirious
- Prostrate
- Undulating
- Cleave
- Nucleus
- Tempers
- Duly Veil'd
- Conceive
- Becomes Him
- Utmost
- Strikes Soundings
- Meanest
- Cohered
- Slave-mart
- Sloven
- Quintillions
- Baffling
- Cunning
- Pluck
- Pliant
- Teeming
- Drop and Tympan
- Eye-fringes
- Partition
- Neck-slue
- Scapula
- Man-balls, Man-root
- Palate-valves
- Love-perturbations
- Articulation
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “I Sing the Body Electric”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“I Sing the Body Electric” Speaker
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“I Sing the Body Electric” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “I Sing the Body Electric”
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More “I Sing the Body Electric” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem's History — Read some background on the poem—and on Whitman's determination to include even the sections that made his early readers uncomfortable!
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The Poem Out Loud — Hear the poem read aloud.
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The Whitman Archive — Visit the Walt Whitman Archive to learn more about Whitman's work (and to compare different versions of this much-revised poem).
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A Brief Biography — Learn more about Whitman's life and work via the Poetry Foundation.
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Whitman's Legacy — Learn more about the history—and enduring influence—of Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Walt Whitman
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