Walt Whitman - One Hour to Madness and Joy

One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

 

O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me
in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of
a determin'd man.

 

O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all
untied and illumin'd!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and
you from yours!
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!
To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.

 

O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!
To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate soul!
To be lost if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.

Submited by

Monday, April 11, 2011 - 00:15

Poesia Consagrada :

No votes yet

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman's picture
Offline
Title: Membro
Last seen: 14 years 19 weeks ago
Joined: 04/08/2011
Posts:
Points: 849

Add comment

Login to post comments

other contents of Walt Whitman

Topic Title Replies Views Last Postsort icon Language
Poesia Consagrada/Biography Walt Whitman Biography 0 10.734 04/13/2011 - 18:13 English
Poesia Consagrada/Biography Walt Whitman Biografia 0 12.786 04/13/2011 - 18:10 Spanish
Poesia Consagrada/Biography Walt Whitman Biografia 0 11.339 04/13/2011 - 18:05 Portuguese
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Youth, Day, Old Age and Night 0 6.709 04/13/2011 - 18:03 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : You Felons on Trial in Courts 0 11.534 04/13/2011 - 18:01 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Yonnondio 0 7.868 04/13/2011 - 18:00 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Yet, Yet Ye Downcast Hours 0 6.947 04/13/2011 - 17:59 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Years of the Modern 0 8.077 04/13/2011 - 17:59 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Year of Meteors [1859-60] 0 8.438 04/13/2011 - 17:57 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : The Wound-Dresser 0 8.199 04/13/2011 - 17:56 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : The World Below the Brine 0 7.435 04/13/2011 - 17:55 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : A Woman Waits for Me 0 7.379 04/13/2011 - 17:53 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea! 0 10.370 04/13/2011 - 17:52 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : With Antecedents 0 9.643 04/13/2011 - 17:51 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Who Learns My Lesson Complete? 0 8.799 04/13/2011 - 17:50 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand 0 7.486 04/13/2011 - 17:48 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : Whispers of Heavenly Death 0 6.455 04/13/2011 - 17:47 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When the Full-Grown Poet Came 0 8.486 04/13/2011 - 17:46 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd 0 8.153 04/13/2011 - 17:45 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When I Read the Book 0 7.012 04/13/2011 - 17:43 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame 0 9.583 04/13/2011 - 17:42 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer 0 15.510 04/13/2011 - 17:41 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : When I Heard at the Close of the Day 0 9.594 04/13/2011 - 17:40 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? 0 6.912 04/13/2011 - 17:38 English
Poesia Consagrada/General Walt Whitman Poems : What Ship Puzzled at Sea 0 13.463 04/13/2011 - 17:37 English