Away from tailordom and fashion’s clothes
Away then to loosen
to unstring the divine bow
so tense so long
Away from curtain
carpet sofa book
from society
from city house
street
and modern improvements and luxuries
away to the primitive winding
wooded creek with its
untrimmed bushes and turfy banks
away from ligatures
tight boots
buttons
and the whole cast-iron
civilized life
from entourage of artificial store
machine studio office parlor
from tailordom and fashion’s clothes
from any clothes perhaps
the summer heats advancing
there in those watery
shaded solitudes
Away soul
let me talk in perfect freedom
negligently confidentially
for one day and night at least
returning to the naked source
—life of us all—
to the breast of the great silent
savage all-accepting Mother
Alas!
how many of us are so sodden
have wandered so far away
that return is almost impossible
Walt Whitman, from Specimen Days (1882)
Edited by John Lyons