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Leaves of Grass (1881-82)
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ONE HOUR TO MADNESS AND JOY.
| ONE hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not! |
| (What is this that frees me so in storms? |
| What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?) |
| O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man! |
|
O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my
children, |
| I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.) |
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O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to
me in defiance of the world! |
| O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine! |
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O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of
a determin'd man. |
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O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all
untied and illumin'd! |
| O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last! |
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To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine
and you from yours! |
| To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature! |
View Page 92
| To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth! |
| To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am. |
| O something unprov'd! something in a trance! |
| To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds! |
| To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous! |
| To court destruction with taunts, with invitations! |
| To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me! |
| To rise thither with my inebriate soul! |
| To be lost if it must be so! |
| To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom! |
| With one brief hour of madness and joy. |