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Whitman's Sampler: Killing the Father of Free Verse. - - - - (ALL LINES BY WALT WHITMAN.) - - - - BY DAPHNE GOTTLIEB - - - - O unspeakable passionate love ... I do not ask who you are, this is not important to me. Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them. I ascend from the moon ... I ascend from the night. A tenor large and fresh as creation fills me. I shall look for loving crops from birth, life, death. No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love ... Who wishes to walk with me? Trippers and askers surround me, Jostling me through streets and public halls ... coming naked to me at night. Askers embody themselves in me, and I embody them. I fling out my fancies toward them. They were purified by death.  Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant, silent night. I'll perfume the grave of him I love ...  No guard can shut me off, no law can prevent me.  Did it make you ache so leaving me?  The sea whisper'd me. My songs cease, I abandon them. No guard can shut me off, no law can prevent me. I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death. I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love. Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before ... there in the night. The myth of heaven indicates peace and night. Did it make you ache so leaving me?  She convulses me like the climax of love And the white skeletons of death, I saw them. And as to you, life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths: I am mad for it to be in contact with me. If I could now and always send the sunrise out of me, I too pass from the night ... Ever the bandage under my chin ... ever the tassels of death Hang your whole weight upon me ...  Askers embody themselves in me, and I embody them.  And the son holds the father with measureless love.  Who wishes to walk with me? My nights cease, I abandon them. I bequeath myself to the death to grow from the grass I love.     MORE SESTINAS

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