Title: By thine own lips, O Sea
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: 1883
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00014
Source: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: This manuscript is a draft of the poem "With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!," first published in Harper's Monthly Magazine in March 1884. The back of the manuscript leaf is letterhead with an illustration of the Sheldon House, Ocean Grove, New Jersey. Whitman visited Ocean Grove, New Jersey, with John Burroughs for a week in late September and early October 1883. This draft was probably composed at the time of the visit or shortly thereafter.
Contributors to digital file: Nick Krauter, Lisa Renfro, Stephen Boykewich, Nicole Gray, Andrew Jewell, Kenneth Price, and Brett Barney
By thine own lips, O Sea
By thine own lips, O Sea,
By As where day and night I wander on here on the beach
To get [Counting?] the tally of the surf‑suggestions wordless utterance of these liquid wordless tongues
And
To
pass within my soul, which loves the
grim, mysterious, wordless story,
That
This haughty‑husky utterance of the sea—That Thisy cosmic, ever‑latent voice of power, refusal
With
The
lengthened swell,
and
The
irrepressible rage,
and
the
^ these emblems
many tears;—these emblems,
Some vast heart, like a planet's, chained
and chafing
there
here,
Some primitive right withheld—some freedom‑lover
pent—some
tyranny;
Within, within and deep, ^ by [thee?] by day and night, ^by thine own tongue lips O SeaO Sea!
Surely some
This chanted tale of elemental passion,With undertone of muffled lion roar,
And skreel of whistling wind, and hiss of spray,
Thisy
Thy
A
The
chanted
chanted
tale of elemental passion,
—thisy
haughty husky utterance
Thisy
tale of subterranean toil and wrongs
Unf
For
once
Seems here
Cconfided to me
*
To pass within my soul the
wordless lesson
Of all that power means
Of freedom, action, in husky-haughty