I loafe and invite my Soul. OPEN. Though certainly not by any means the proprietor of Reaper's Gulch's schoolhouse-- for the building and the land it sat on belonged to the township, itself, picked out by the original settlers and properly bought and paid for by its citizens' taxes-- Miss Delilah Ann Brewster, was the schoolhouse's sole key-holder and in the serenely quiet, early morning hours such as these, she sometimes fancied herself its lord and master as well. From where she sat at her desk now, Miss Brewster could look up to the sturdy, well-made window to her right and see the wide-open sky paint itself in softer shades of lighter blues, mutable and uncertain lavenders and indigos, and unapologetically bold carnelians and rubies. The sun was, indeed, rising as it always did. And soon Miss Brewster would not even need the light of the lantern perched on her desk to read by. But for now, in this silent moment secreted away for her own personal use and fulfillment rather than the needs of her students, or brothers, or townsmen inquiring about some book or other to borrow, Miss Brewster's thoughts were too consumed with the text before her to notice the approach of daylight.
The particular book occupying her thoughts so completely this early morning was one that was entirely new to her-- though the edition, itself, was a revision of an earlier manuscript and still several years old now besides; old enough to be used and worn down by other just as much as the long, perilous journey from Boston. And though it was most likely entirely out of fashion and popular discourse back in the timelier and bustling metropolises of the East, Delilah found herself thoroughly shocked by the modernity of the verse, the flagrant disregard of all poetic conventions and laws, the intimately personal detail and philosophical meditations of selfhood that skirted at arrogance and general impropriety. And yet, as shocking as the volume's wild and seemingly haphazard words were to Delilah's well-mannered sensibilities, she felt herself compelled to read on, the unorthodox meter calling to her like a distantly remembered yet powerfully moving old psalm. The poem within the volume that she was so thoroughly immersed in now was entitled after the poet, himself-- one "Walt Whitman" (who, if the daguerreotype featured within the first pages was to be believed, was a salt and pepper whiskered man, of hardy size and stocky build about the shoulders, who dressed as many of Wyoming's gentlemen did, practical and far less fashionably and aristocratically as other contemporary poets did in their books' daguerreotypes. Yet nonetheless for all of his obvious masculinity, this Walt Whitman possessed a certain feminine quality and sensitivity about the eyes in his otherwise solemn and aged face that intrigued her and had her flipping back pages to study them again with far more frequency and eagerness than the eyes of the oft' regarded good-looking of town did.) The poem, "Walt Whitman" had begun as unrepentantly direct and presumptuous as any of his others:
I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my Soul, I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes-- the shelves are crowded with perfumes, I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it, The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume-- it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless, It is for my mouth forever-- I am in love with it, I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked, I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
But of course, the atmosphere of the schoolhouse, itself, where Miss Brewster sat in this particular moment, was finally comfortably warm (after she had seen to the needs of the wood-burning stove an hour or so prior) and filled with the scents of the burning wood and ash and chalk dust that she seldom ever noticed at all, let alone when so completely involved with her reading. It would take nothing short of a student entering the schoolhouse noisily-- clearing a throat, or scuffling shoes along the floorboards, or a pair cheerfully conversing with one another-- to pull Delilah's attention away from the book cradled delicately in her hands and its compelling, meandering words that filled her with every feeling from shock and rebellion to recognition and familiarity. It would take nothing less than the vocal, needy presence of another to remind Miss Brewster of her place, her duties, her responsibilities and effectively pull her out of this contemplative, self-involved daze brought on by the reading of that Walt Whitman fellow's strangely engaging verse.