“I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest.”

“Song of MyselfI have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now, And will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”

“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 was never any more inception than there is now,Nor any more youth or age than there is now;And will never be any more perfection than there is now,Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”

“Have you surpassed the rest? Are you the president? It doesn't matter. They will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass on.”

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”

“Songs of myselfI 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 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,..”