Bare-stript Heart

From "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman

I believe in you my soul,

the other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass,

loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want,

not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay

such a transparent summer morning,

How you settled your head

athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me,

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone,

and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,

And reach'd till you felt my beard,

and reach'd till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me

the peace and knowledge

that pass all the argument of the earth,

And I know that the hand of God

is the promise of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God

is the brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born

are also my brothers,

and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love...

From "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman