These Please the Soul Well

I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough,

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing

flesh is enough...

I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.

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.

- Walt Whitman