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1. BOOK XIX. SEA-DRIFT
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1.1. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
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0
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Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
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1
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Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
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2
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Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
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Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child
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leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
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Down from the shower'd halo,
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Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they
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were alive,
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8
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Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
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9
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From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
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From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings 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,
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From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
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From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
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From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
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From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
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As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
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Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
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A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
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Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
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I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
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Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
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A reminiscence sing.
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Once Paumanok,
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When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,
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Up this seashore in some briers,
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Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together,
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And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,
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And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,
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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
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them,
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Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.
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Shine! shine! shine!
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Pour down your warmth, great sun.'
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While we bask, we two together.
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Two together!
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Winds blow south, or winds blow north,
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Day come white, or night come black,
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Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
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Singing all time, minding no time,
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While we two keep together.
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Till of a sudden,
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May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate,
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One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest,
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Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next,
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Nor ever appear'd again.
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And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,
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And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,
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Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
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Or flitting from brier to brier by day,
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I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,
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The solitary guest from Alabama.
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Blow! blow! blow!
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Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore;
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I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.
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Yes, when the stars glisten'd,
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All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake,
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Down almost amid the slapping waves,
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Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears.
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He call'd on his mate,
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He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know.
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Yes my brother I know,
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The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note,
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For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,
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Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,
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Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights
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after their sorts,
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The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
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I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
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Listen'd long and long.
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Listen'd to keep, to sing, now translating the notes,
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Following you my brother.
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Soothe! soothe! soothe!
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75
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Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,
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76
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And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close,
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77
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But my love soothes not me, not me.
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78
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Low hangs the moon, it rose late,
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79
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It is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love, with love.
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O madly the sea pushes upon the land,
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With love, with love.
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O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers?
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83
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What is that little black thing I see there in the white?
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Loud! loud! loud!
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Loud I call to you, my love!
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86
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High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,
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87
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Surely you must know who is here, is here,
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You must know who I am, my love.
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89
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Low-hanging moon!
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What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
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91
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O it is the shape, the shape of my mate.'
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92
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O moon do not keep her from me any longer.
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93
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Land! land! O land!
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94
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Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again
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if you only would,
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For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.
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O rising stars!
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Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.
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99
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O throat! O trembling throat!
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Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
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101
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Pierce the woods, the earth,
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102
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Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.
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103
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Shake out carols!
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104
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Solitary here, the night's carols!
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105
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Carols of lonesome love! death's carols!
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106
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Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
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107
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O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea!
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108
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O reckless despairing carols.
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109
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But soft! sink low!
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Soft! let me just murmur,
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111
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And do you wait a moment you husky-nois'd sea,
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112
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For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,
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So faint, I must be still, be still to listen,
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But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me.
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115
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Hither my love!
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Here I am! here!
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With this just-sustain'd note I announce myself to you,
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This gentle call is for you my love, for you.
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119
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Do not be decoy'd elsewhere,
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120
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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,
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122
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Those are the shadows of leaves.
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123
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O darkness! O in vain!
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O I am very sick and sorrowful
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O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea!
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O troubled reflection in the sea!
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O throat! O throbbing heart!
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And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.
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O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!
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130
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In the air, in the woods, over fields,
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Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
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But my mate no more, no more with me!
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133
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We two together no more.
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134
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The aria sinking,
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135
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All else continuing, the stars shining,
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136
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The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,
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137
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With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
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138
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On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling,
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The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of
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the sea almost touching,
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The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the
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atmosphere dallying,
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The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously
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bursting,
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The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,
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146
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The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,
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147
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The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,
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The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,
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149
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To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd secret hissing,
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To the outsetting bard.
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151
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Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,)
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Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?
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153
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For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I have heard you,
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154
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Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,
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155
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And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder
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and more sorrowful than yours,
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157
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A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.
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158
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O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,
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159
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O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,
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160
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Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
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161
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Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
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162
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Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what
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there in the night,
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164
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By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,
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165
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The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within,
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166
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The unknown want, the destiny of me.
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167
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O give me the clue! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,)
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168
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O if I am to have so much, let me have more!
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169
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A word then, (for I will conquer it,)
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170
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The word final, superior to all,
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Subtle, sent up—what is it?—I listen;
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172
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Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?
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173
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Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?
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174
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Whereto answering, the sea,
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Delaying not, hurrying not,
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Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,
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Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,
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178
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And again death, death, death, death
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179
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Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart,
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180
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But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,
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181
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Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
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182
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Death, death, death, death, death.
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183
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Which I do not forget.
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184
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But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
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185
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That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach,
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186
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With the thousand responsive songs at random,
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187
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My own songs awaked from that hour,
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188
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And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
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189
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The word of the sweetest song and all songs,
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190
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That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
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191
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(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet
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192
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garments, bending aside,)
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The sea whisper'd me.
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1.2. As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life
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1
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1
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As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,
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As I wended the shores I know,
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As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
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Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,
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Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
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I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
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Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,
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Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
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The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land
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of the globe.
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Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those
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slender windrows,
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Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
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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,
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Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses,
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These you presented to me you fish-shaped island,
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As I wended the shores I know,
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As I walk'd with that electric self seeking types.
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2
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As I wend to the shores I know not,
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As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd,
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As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
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As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
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I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift,
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A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
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Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.
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O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth,
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Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,
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Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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me and sting me,
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Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.
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42
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3
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43
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You oceans both, I close with you,
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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.
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You friable shore with trails of debris,
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You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot,
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What is yours is mine my father.
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I too Paumanok,
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I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been
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wash'd on your shores,
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I too am but a trail of drift and debris,
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I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island.
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54
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I throw myself upon your breast my father,
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55
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I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,
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I hold you so firm till you answer me something.
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57
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Kiss me my father,
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58
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Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love,
|
|
59
|
|
|
Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring I envy.
|
| |
|
60
|
|
|
4
|
|
61
|
|
|
Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,)
|
|
62
|
|
|
Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,
|
|
63
|
|
|
Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me,
|
|
64
|
|
|
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or
|
|
65
|
|
|
gather from you.
|
| |
|
66
|
|
|
I mean tenderly by you and all,
|
|
67
|
|
|
I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we lead,
|
|
68
|
|
|
and following me and mine.
|
| |
|
69
|
|
|
Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses,
|
|
70
|
|
|
Froth, snowy white, and bubbles,
|
|
71
|
|
|
(See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last,
|
|
72
|
|
|
See, the prismatic colors glistening and rolling,)
|
|
73
|
|
|
Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,
|
|
74
|
|
|
Buoy'd hither from many moods, one contradicting another,
|
|
75
|
|
|
From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell,
|
|
76
|
|
|
Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil,
|
|
77
|
|
|
Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown,
|
|
78
|
|
|
A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating,
|
|
79
|
|
|
drifted at random,
|
|
80
|
|
|
Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature,
|
|
81
|
|
|
Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets,
|
|
82
|
|
|
We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out before you,
|
|
83
|
|
|
You up there walking or sitting,
|
|
84
|
|
|
Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.3. Tears
|
|
0
|
|
|
Tears! tears! tears!
|
|
1
|
|
|
In the night, in solitude, tears,
|
|
2
|
|
|
On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate,
|
|
4
|
|
|
Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head;
|
|
5
|
|
|
O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears?
|
|
6
|
|
|
What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand?
|
|
7
|
|
|
Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries;
|
|
8
|
|
|
O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the beach!
|
|
9
|
|
|
O wild and dismal night storm, with wind—O belching and desperate!
|
|
10
|
|
|
O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and
|
|
11
|
|
|
regulated pace,
|
|
12
|
|
|
But away at night as you fly, none looking—O then the unloosen'd ocean,
|
|
13
|
|
|
Of tears! tears! tears!
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.4. To the Man-of-War-Bird
|
|
0
|
|
|
Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions,
|
|
2
|
|
|
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,
|
|
3
|
|
|
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)
|
|
4
|
|
|
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,
|
|
5
|
|
|
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,
|
|
6
|
|
|
(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.)
|
| |
|
7
|
|
|
Far, far at sea,
|
|
8
|
|
|
After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks,
|
|
9
|
|
|
With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,
|
|
10
|
|
|
The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,
|
|
11
|
|
|
The limpid spread of air cerulean,
|
|
12
|
|
|
Thou also re-appearest.
|
| |
|
13
|
|
|
Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)
|
|
14
|
|
|
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
|
|
15
|
|
|
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,
|
|
16
|
|
|
Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,
|
|
17
|
|
|
At dusk that lookist on Senegal, at morn America,
|
|
18
|
|
|
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
|
|
19
|
|
|
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul,
|
|
20
|
|
|
What joys! what joys were thine!
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.5. Aboard at a Ship's Helm
|
|
0
|
|
|
Aboard at a ship's helm,
|
|
1
|
|
|
A young steersman steering with care.
|
| |
|
2
|
|
|
Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,
|
|
3
|
|
|
An ocean-bell—O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves.
|
| |
|
4
|
|
|
O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.
|
| |
|
6
|
|
|
For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition,
|
|
7
|
|
|
The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails,
|
|
8
|
|
|
The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds
|
|
9
|
|
|
away gayly and safe.
|
| |
|
10
|
|
|
But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!
|
|
11
|
|
|
Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.6. On the Beach at Night
|
|
0
|
|
|
On the beach at night,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Stands a child with her father,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
|
| |
|
3
|
|
|
Up through the darkness,
|
|
4
|
|
|
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
|
|
6
|
|
|
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
|
|
7
|
|
|
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
|
|
8
|
|
|
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
|
|
9
|
|
|
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.
|
| |
|
10
|
|
|
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
|
|
11
|
|
|
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
|
|
12
|
|
|
Watching, silently weeps.
|
| |
|
13
|
|
|
Weep not, child,
|
|
14
|
|
|
Weep not, my darling,
|
|
15
|
|
|
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
|
|
16
|
|
|
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
|
|
17
|
|
|
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in
|
|
18
|
|
|
apparition,
|
|
19
|
|
|
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the
|
|
20
|
|
|
Pleiades shall emerge,
|
|
21
|
|
|
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall
|
|
22
|
|
|
shine out again,
|
|
23
|
|
|
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
|
|
24
|
|
|
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall
|
|
25
|
|
|
again shine.
|
| |
|
26
|
|
|
Then dearest child mournest thou only for jupiter?
|
|
27
|
|
|
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
|
| |
|
28
|
|
|
Something there is,
|
|
29
|
|
|
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
|
|
30
|
|
|
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
|
|
31
|
|
|
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
|
|
32
|
|
|
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
|
|
33
|
|
|
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
|
|
34
|
|
|
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
|
|
35
|
|
|
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.7. The World below the Brine
|
|
0
|
|
|
The world below the brine,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick
|
|
3
|
|
|
tangle openings, and pink turf,
|
|
4
|
|
|
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the
|
|
5
|
|
|
play of light through the water,
|
|
6
|
|
|
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes,
|
|
7
|
|
|
and the aliment of the swimmers,
|
|
8
|
|
|
Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling
|
|
9
|
|
|
close to the bottom,
|
|
10
|
|
|
The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting
|
|
11
|
|
|
with his flukes,
|
|
12
|
|
|
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy
|
|
13
|
|
|
sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,
|
|
14
|
|
|
Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths,
|
|
15
|
|
|
breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
|
|
16
|
|
|
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed
|
|
17
|
|
|
by beings like us who walk this sphere,
|
|
18
|
|
|
The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.8. On the Beach at Night Alone
|
|
0
|
|
|
On the beach at night alone,
|
|
1
|
|
|
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
|
|
2
|
|
|
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef
|
|
3
|
|
|
of the universes and of the future.
|
| |
|
4
|
|
|
A vast similitude interlocks all,
|
|
5
|
|
|
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
|
|
6
|
|
|
All distances of place however wide,
|
|
7
|
|
|
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
|
|
8
|
|
|
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in
|
|
9
|
|
|
different worlds,
|
|
10
|
|
|
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
|
|
11
|
|
|
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
|
|
12
|
|
|
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
|
|
13
|
|
|
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
|
|
14
|
|
|
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
|
|
15
|
|
|
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.9. Song for All Seas, All Ships
|
|
0
|
|
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
To-day a rude brief recitative,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Of unnamed heroes in the ships—of waves spreading and spreading
|
|
4
|
|
|
far as the eye can reach,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing,
|
|
6
|
|
|
And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations,
|
|
7
|
|
|
Fitful, like a surge.
|
| |
|
8
|
|
|
Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors,
|
|
9
|
|
|
Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor
|
|
10
|
|
|
death dismay.
|
|
11
|
|
|
Pick'd sparingly without noise by thee old ocean, chosen by thee,
|
|
12
|
|
|
Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest nations,
|
|
13
|
|
|
Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee,
|
|
14
|
|
|
Indomitable, untamed as thee.
|
| |
|
15
|
|
|
(Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,
|
|
16
|
|
|
Ever the stock preserv'd and never lost, though rare, enough for
|
|
17
|
|
|
seed preserv'd.)
|
| |
|
18
|
|
|
2
|
|
19
|
|
|
Flaunt out O sea your separate flags of nations!
|
|
20
|
|
|
Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals!
|
|
21
|
|
|
But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man
|
|
22
|
|
|
one flag above all the rest,
|
|
23
|
|
|
A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death,
|
|
24
|
|
|
Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates,
|
|
25
|
|
|
And all that went down doing their duty,
|
|
26
|
|
|
Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old,
|
|
27
|
|
|
A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave sailors,
|
|
28
|
|
|
All seas, all ships.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.10. Patroling Barnegat
|
|
0
|
|
|
Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running,
|
|
1
|
|
|
Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,
|
|
4
|
|
|
Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
|
|
5
|
|
|
On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,
|
|
6
|
|
|
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,
|
|
7
|
|
|
Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,
|
|
8
|
|
|
(That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?)
|
|
9
|
|
|
Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,
|
|
10
|
|
|
Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,
|
|
11
|
|
|
Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,
|
|
12
|
|
|
A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,
|
|
13
|
|
|
That savage trinity warily watching.
|
| |
| |
|
|
1.11. After the Sea-Ship
|
|
0
|
|
|
After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,
|
|
1
|
|
|
After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,
|
|
2
|
|
|
Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,
|
|
3
|
|
|
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
|
|
4
|
|
|
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
|
|
5
|
|
|
Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
|
|
6
|
|
|
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
|
|
7
|
|
|
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,
|
|
8
|
|
|
Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing,
|
|
9
|
|
|
The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome
|
|
10
|
|
|
under the sun,
|
|
11
|
|
|
A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,
|
