I Sing the Body Electric

       1
  I sing the body electric,
  The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
  They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
  And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

  Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
  And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
  And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
  And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

       2
  The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
      balks account,
  That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

  The expression of the face balks account,
  But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
  It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
      his hips and wrists,
  It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
      and knees, dress does not hide him,
  The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
  To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
  You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

  The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
      folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
      contour of their shape downwards,
  The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
      the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
      silently to and from the heave of the water,
  The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
      horse