Walt Whitman voices a man brimming with desire and certainty. He sees sex not as a private act but as the force that holds all existence: bodies, passions, governments, gods. Everything, he insists, would be lacking without it. He dismisses women who cannot match his heat, preferring those who are his full equals—weathered, athletic, self-possessed. The speaker’s voice is tender yet commanding, possessive yet worshipful. He envisions pouring his accumulated rivers of life into them, planting seeds for a future America of strong sons and daughters, new artists, musicians. The mood crackles with unapologetic hunger and a strange, mythic tenderness, fusing crude physicality with cosmic purpose.
A Woman Waits for Me. — Summary
A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.
Sex contains all, Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the earth, These are contain’d in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself.
Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex, Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.
Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women, I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me; I see that they understand me, and do not deny me; I see that they are worthy of me—I will be the robust husband of those women.
They are not one jot less than I am, They are tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds, Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength, They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves, They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear, well-possess’d of themselves.
I draw you close to me, you women! I cannot let you go, I would do you good, I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others’ sakes; Envelop’d in you sleep greater heroes and bards, They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.
It is I, you women—I make my way, I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable—but I love you, I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you, I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for These States—I press with slow rude muscle, I brace myself effectually—I listen to no entreaties, I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me.
Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself, In you I wrap a thousand onward years, On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America, The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers, The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn, I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings, I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you interpenetrate now, I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now, I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now.