Song of Myself, XI
by Walt Whitman
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the
shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so
friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life
and all so lonesome.
She owns the fine house by the rise
of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest
aft the blinds of the window.
Which of the young men does she like
the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful
to her.
Where are you off to, lady? for I see
you,
You splash in the water there, yet
stay stock still in your room.
Dancing and laughing along the beach
came the twenty-ninth bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw
them and loved them.
The beards of the young men glisten'd
with wet, it ran from their long
hair,
Little streams pass'd over their
bodies.
An unseen hand also pass'd over their
bodies,
It descended trembling from their
temples and ribs.
The young men float on their backs,
their white bellies bulge to the sun,
they do not ask who seizes fast to
them,
They do not know who puffs and
declines with the pendant and bending
arch,
They do not think whom they souse
with spray.
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