Walt Whitman
Copyright 2004. Pat @ Close. All Rights Reserved.
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Leaves of Grass

A Walt Whitman Collection

Book II. Starting From Paumanok

Chapter XIII

Was somebody asking to see the soul?
See, your own shape and countenance, persons, substances, beasts,
     the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.

All hold spiritual joys and afterwards loosen them;
How can the real body ever die and be buried?

Of your real body and any man`s or woman`s real body,
Item for item it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners and
     pass to fitting spheres,
Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to the
     moment of death.

Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the
     meaning, the main concern,
Any more than a man`s substance and life or a woman`s substance and
     life return in the body and the soul,
Indifferently before death and after death.

Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern and
     includes and is the soul;
Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body, or any part
     of it!