As I lay with 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 in 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;

(Indeed I am myself the real soldier;
It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped artilleryman;)

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
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