I will sing the song of companionship,
Friendship is the good old word—the love of my fellow-men—
I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.
If any of my works shall survive it will be the fellowship in it,
The curious testimony called personal presence and face to face meeting.

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
I like being with those I love; I never get tired of that,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough.
I never get tired of the friend I am happy with,
It is just comfort enough to be together.

There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well;
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well,
Now I care not to walk the earth unless a friend walk by my side.

Our dear times, when we first got acquainted, (we recked not of them as they passed,) were so good, so hearty, those friendship times, our talk, our knitting together. I think nothing could be better or quieter and more happy of the kind—and is there any better kind in life’s experiences, never losing old friends and finding new ones every day of my life?
(What! The new friends drive out the old? Not unless the old drive themselves out.)

Do you know what it is to be loved as you pass in the street?
I know what it is to receive the passionate love of many friends,
Call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
Voices I love calling me promptly and loudly by my nighest name.

The curious attachment of young men to me—
Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, appears on the streets,
My brood of grown and part-grown tough boys accompanying me,
Who love to be with no one else so well as they love to be with me,
By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me;
I reckon I am their boss and they make me a pet besides.

Soon a troop gathers around me,
And surround me and lead me and run ahead when I walk,
Onward we move, a gay gang of blackguards!
With a wonderful tenacity of friendship, and passionate fondness for their friends.
I am in a good mood for gentle things—
The beautiful day, my hearty reception here,
Joys of the dear companions, and of the merry word and laughing face,
These eyes and ears that like some broad parterre bloom up around, before me.

The laugh sounds out, with mirth-shouting music and wild-flapping pennants of joy!
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Ready with life or death for a friend,
And always a manly readiness to make friends,
(But they never give words to their most ardent friendships.)

I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth,
I dream’d that was the new city of friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.
Here and there, couples or trios—young and old, clear-faced, and of perfect physique—walk with twined arms, in divine friendship, happy,
Natural happinesses, love, the groups of loving friends.

O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
I say it shall be limitless, unloosen’d—
I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for,
The friendly presence and magnetism needed.
Behold! your friend, as he arrives,
Welcome him when he looks upon you with cheerful look.

Here is the efflux of the soul,
The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower’d gates, ever provoking questions:
What gives me to be free to a woman’s and man’s good will—the continual good will I have met?
What gives them to be free to mine?
Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood?
What about these likes of myself that draw me so close by by tender directions  and indirections?
Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?

We meet people to whom we are drawn,
We do not know what draws us—could not tell why we are drawn—
Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot,
And might tell the pinings I have, and might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but cannot,
Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again;
I cannot tell whence the cause of my faintest wish,
So I never could explain why I love anybody, or anything.

O to attract by more than attraction!
How it is I know not, yet behold!
The fact is indisputable, the bond is inseverable,
The something which obeys none of the rest, how magnetic it draws.

Here rises the fluid and attaching character,
The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman,
Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old,
From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments—
Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.

There is the one quality significant above all, essential—the quality of touch—
To touch anyone, what is this then?
What is less or more than a touch?
A touch now reads me a library of knowledge in an instant,
It talks for me with a tongue of its own,
It finds an ear wherever it rests or taps.

Do you know what it is to have men and women crave the touch of your hand and the contact of you?
One touch—that wonderful indescribable combination,
Rarely found, precious when found,
Uniting great manly strength with sweet delicacy,
Soft as a woman’s, gentle enough to nurse a child.

Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
There is something in the touch of any candid clean person,
What it is I do not know, but it fills me with wonderful and exquisite sensations.
Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,
To touch my person to someone else’s is about as much as I can stand.

Does the earth gravitate? does not all matter, aching, attract all matter?
So the body of me to all I meet or know.
All day I have walked the city and talked with my friends,

The spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they come, a great crowd,
Some walk by my side and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
And I in the middle, my right and left arms round the sides of two friends,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me.

I am the friend of all, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat,
I loosen myself, pass freely, attracting the best out of people,
None of their meaner and stingier traits, but always their sweetest and most generous traits,
Persuader always of people to give him their sweetest touches.

I want to meet every man, worst man or best man, with the open hand,
Let me hold new ones by the hand every day,
Or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—
The play of the quiet lambent electricity of real friendship,
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.

NEXT: Lovers Around the World

The texts in this anthology should NOT be cited as direct quotations from Whitman. If you want to quote from this site for something you are writing or posting, please read this first (click here).