Walt Whitman: As I lay with my head in your lap camerado (Poem)

As I lay with my head in your lap camerado

As I lay with my head in your lap camerado,
The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air I
resume,
I know I am restless and make others so,
I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death,
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle
them,
I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have
been had all accepted me,
I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions,
majorities, nor ridicule,
And the threat of what is call’d hell is little or nothing to me;
And the lure of what is call’d heaven is little or nothing to me;
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still
urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell’d and defeated.

Walt Whitman
(1819 – 1892)
As I lay with my head in your lap camerado
From: Leaves of grass

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

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