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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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SEA-DRIFT.
OUT OF THE CRADLE ENDLESSLY ROCKING.
OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking, |
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, |
Out of the Ninth-month midnight, |
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child
leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
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Down from the shower'd halo, |
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if
they were alive,
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Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, |
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, |
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fall-
ings I heard,
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From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with
tears,
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From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist, |
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, |
From the myriad thence-arous'd words, |
From the word stronger and more delicious than any, |
From such as now they start the scene revisiting, |
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, |
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly, |
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again, |
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, |
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, |
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them, |
When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was
growing,
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Up this seashore in some briers, |
Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together, |
And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown, |
And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand, |
And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with
bright eyes,
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And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing
them,
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Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. |
Pour down your warmth, great sun! |
While we bask, we two together. |
Winds blow south, or winds blow north, |
Day come white, or night come black, |
Home, or rivers and mountains from home, |
Singing all time, minding no time, |
While we two keep together. |
May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate, |
One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest, |
Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next, |
And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea, |
And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather, |
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Over the hoarse surging of the sea, |
Or flitting from brier to brier by day, |
I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird, |
The solitary guest from Alabama. |
Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore; |
I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me. |
Yes, when the stars glisten'd, |
All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake, |
Down almost amid the slapping waves, |
Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears. |
He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know. |
The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note, |
For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding, |
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows, |
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and
sights after their sorts,
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The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing, |
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, |
Listen'd to keep, to sing, now translating the notes, |
Following you my brother. |
Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, |
And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close, |
But my love soothes not me, not me. |
Low hangs the moon, it rose late, |
It is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love, with love. |
O madly the sea pushes upon the land, |
O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers? |
What is that little black thing I see there in the white? |
Loud I call to you, my love! |
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High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves, |
Surely you must know who is here, is here, |
You must know who I am, my love. |
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? |
O it is the shape, the shape of my mate! |
O moon do not keep her from me any longer. |
Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate
back again if you only would,
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For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look. |
Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some
of you.
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O throat! O trembling throat! |
Sound clearer through the atmosphere! |
Pierce the woods, the earth, |
Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want. |
Solitary here, the night's carols! |
Carols of lonesome love! death's carols! |
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! |
O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea! |
O reckless despairing carols. |
Soft! let me just murmur, |
And do you wait a moment you husky-nois'd sea, |
For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, |
So faint, I must be still, be still to listen, |
But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately
to me.
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With this just-sustain'd note I announce myself to you, |
This gentle call is for you my love, for you. |
Do not be decoy'd elsewhere, |
That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice, |
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That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray, |
Those are the shadows of leaves. |
O I am very sick and sorrowful. |
O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea! |
O troubled reflection in the sea! |
O throat! O throbbing heart! |
And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night. |
O past! O happy life! O songs of joy! |
In the air, in the woods, over fields, |
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! |
But my mate no more, no more with me! |
All else continuing, the stars shining, |
The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing, |
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning, |
On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling, |
The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face
of the sea almost touching,
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The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the
atmosphere dallying,
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The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultu-
ously bursting,
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The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing, |
The strange tears down the cheeks coursing, |
The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering, |
The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying, |
To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd secret
hissing,
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Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,) |
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me? |
For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I have
heard you,
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Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake, |
And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder
and more sorrowful than yours,
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A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never
to die.
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O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me, |
O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating
you,
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Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, |
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, |
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what
there in the night,
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By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon, |
The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within, |
The unknown want, the destiny of me. |
O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,) |
O if I am to have so much, let me have more! |
A word then, (for I will conquer it,) |
The word final, superior to all, |
Subtle, sent up—what is it?—I listen; |
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-
waves?
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Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands? |
Whereto answering, the sea, |
Delaying not, hurrying not, |
Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before day-
break,
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Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death, |
And again death, death, death, death, |
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's
heart,
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But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet, |
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all
over,
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Death, death, death, death, death. |
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother, |
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach, |
With the thousand responsive songs at random, |
My own songs awaked from that hour, |
And with them the key, the word up from the waves, |
The word of the sweetest song and all songs, |
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet, |
(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet
garments, bending aside,)
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AS I EBB'D WITH THE OCEAN OF LIFE.
1
AS I ebb'd with the ocean of life, |
As I wended the shores I know, |
As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok, |
Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant, |
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, |
I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, |
Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems, |
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, |
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the
land of the globe.
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Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow
those slender windrows,
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Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, |
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the
tide,
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Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, |
Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses, |
These you presented to me you fish-shaped island, |
As I wended the shores I know, |
As I walk'd with that electric self seeking types. |
2
As I wend to the shores I know not, |
As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd, |
As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, |
As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, |
I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift, |
A few sands and dead leaves to gather, |
Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift. |
O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth, |
Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, |
Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I
have not once had the least idea who or what I am,
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But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet
untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,
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Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and
bows,
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With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, |
Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath. |
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I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single
object, and that no man ever can,
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Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart
upon me and sting me,
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Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all. |
3
You oceans both, I close with you, |
We murmur alike reproachfully rolling sands and drift, knowing
not why,
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These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all. |
You friable shore with trails of debris, |
You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot, |
What is yours is mine my father. |
I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been
wash'd on your shores,
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I too am but a trail of drift and debris, |
I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island. |
I throw myself upon your breast my father, |
I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me, |
I hold you so firm till you answer me something. |
Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love, |
Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring
I envy.
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4
Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,) |
Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother, |
Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me, |
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you
or gather from you.
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I mean tenderly by you and all, |
I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we
lead, and following me and mine.
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Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses, |
Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, |
(See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last, |
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See, the prismatic colors glistening and rolling,) |
Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, |
Buoy'd hither from many moods, one contradicting another, |
From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, |
Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, |
Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, |
A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating,
drifted at random,
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Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, |
Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets, |
We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out
before you,
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You up there walking or sitting, |
Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet. |
TEARS.
In the night, in solitude, tears, |
On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand, |
Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate, |
Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head; |
O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears? |
What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand? |
Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries; |
O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the
beach!
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O wild and dismal night storm, with wind—O belching and des-
perate!
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O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance
and regulated pace,
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But away at night as you fly, none looking—O then the unloosen'd
ocean,
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TO THE MAN-OF-WAR-BIRD.
THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm, |
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions, |
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st, |
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,) |
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating, |
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee, |
(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.) |
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After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks, |
With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, |
The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun, |
The limpid spread of air cerulean, |
Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) |
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, |
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, |
Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms
gyrating,
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At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, |
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, |
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul, |
What joys! what joys were thine! |
ABOARD AT A SHIP'S HELM.
A young steersman steering with care. |
Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, |
An ocean-bell—O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves. |
O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, |
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. |
For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition, |
The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her
gray sails,
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The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds
away gayly and safe.
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But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship! |
Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging. |
ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT.
Stands a child with her father, |
Watching the east, the autumn sky. |
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While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading, |
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky, |
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east, |
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter, |
And nigh at hand, only a very little above, |
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades. |
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, |
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all, |
Watching, silently weeps. |
With these kisses let me remove your tears, |
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, |
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in
apparition,
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Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the
Pleiades shall emerge,
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They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall
shine out again,
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The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they
endure,
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The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons
shall again shine.
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Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter? |
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars? |
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper, |
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,) |
Something there is more immortal even than the stars, |
(Many the burials, many the days and night, passing away,) |
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter, |
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, |
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades. |
THE WORLD BELOW THE BRINE.
THE world below the brine, |
Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, |
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle,
openings, and pink turf,
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Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the
play of light through the water,
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Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes,
and the aliment of the swimmers,
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Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling
close to the bottom,
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The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting
with his flukes,
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The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard,
and the sting-ray,
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Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths,
breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
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The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed
by beings like us who walk this sphere,
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The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other
spheres.
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ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE.
ON the beach at night alone, |
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song, |
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef
of the universes and of the future.
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A vast similitude interlocks all, |
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, |
All distances of place however wide, |
All distances of time, all inanimate forms, |
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in
different worlds,
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All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the
brutes,
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All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages, |
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any
globe,
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All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future, |
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd, |
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them. |
SONG FOR ALL SEAS, ALL SHIPS.
1
TO-DAY a rude brief recitative, |
Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal, |
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Of unnamed heroes in the ships—of waves spreading and spread-
ing far as the eye can reach,
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Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing, |
And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations, |
Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid
sailors,
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Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise
nor death dismay,
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Pick'd sparingly without noise by thee old ocean, chosen by thee, |
Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest
nations,
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Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee, |
Indomitable, untamed as thee. |
(Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing, |
Ever the stock preserv'd and never lost, though rare, enough for
seed preserv'd.)
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2
Flaunt out O sea your separate flags of nations! |
Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals! |
But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man
one flag above all the rest,
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A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above
death,
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Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates, |
And all that went down doing their duty, |
Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old, |
A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave sailors, |
PATROLING BARNEGAT.
WILD, wild the storm, and the sea high running, |
Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering, |
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing, |
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, |
Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering, |
On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting, |
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting, |
Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing, |
(That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?) |
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Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending, |
Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting, |
Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering, |
A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting, |
That savage trinity warily watching. |
AFTER THE SEA-SHIP.
AFTER the sea-ship, after the whistling winds, |
After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes, |
Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks, |
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship, |
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying, |
Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves, |
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves, |
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface, |
Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully
flowing,
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The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome
under the sun,
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A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments, |
Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following. |
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