Song Of Myself

Song of Myself
By Walt Whitman

I

I celebrate myself, and sing myself
And what I assume you shall assume
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here from parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not til death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back awhile sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard
Nature without check with original energy.