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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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IN CABIN'D SHIPS AT SEA.
The boundless blue on every side expanding, |
With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious
waves,
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Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine, |
Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails, |
She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or
under many a star at night,
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By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land,
be read,
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Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts, |
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be
said,
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The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our
feet,
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We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion, |
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the
briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
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The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy
rhythm,
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The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, |
And this is ocean's poem. |
Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny, |
You not a reminiscence of the land alone, |
You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not
whither, yet ever full of faith,
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Consort to every ship that sails, sail you! |
Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold
it here in every leaf;)
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Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart
the imperious waves,
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Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every
sea,
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This song for mariners and all their ships. |
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