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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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THOUGHT.
AS I sit with others at a great feast, suddenly while the music is
playing,
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To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral in mist of
a wreck at sea,
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Of certain ships, how they sail from port with flying streamers and
wafted kisses, and that is the last of them,
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Of the solemn and murky mystery about the fate of the President, |
Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations founder'd
off the Northeast coast and going down—of the steamship
Arctic going down,
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Of the veil'd tableau—women gather'd together on deck, pale,
heroic, waiting the moment that draws so close—O the
moment!
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A huge sob—a few bubbles—the white foam spirting up—and
then the women gone,
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Sinking there while the passionless wet flows on—and I now
pondering, Are those women indeed gone?
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Are souls drown'd and destroy'd so? |
Is only matter triumphant? |
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