Leaves of Grass Part 31

I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can, Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon me and sting me, 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, These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all.

You friable sh.o.r.e with trails of debris, You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot, What is yours is mine my father.

I too Paumanok, I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been wash'd on your sh.o.r.es, 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.

Kiss me my father, 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.

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 hoa.r.s.e and angry against my feet as I touch you or gather from you.

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.

Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses, Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, (See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last, 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, 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, You up there walking or sitting, Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet.

Tears

Tears! tears! tears!

In the night, in solitude, tears, On the white sh.o.r.e dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand, Tears, not a star s.h.i.+ning, all dark and desolate, Moist tears from the eyes of a m.u.f.fled 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!

O wild and dismal night storm, with wind-O belching and desperate!

O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and regulated pace, But away at night as you fly, none looking-O then the unloosen'd ocean, Of tears! tears! tears!

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.)

Far, far at sea, After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the sh.o.r.e with wrecks, With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, The rosy and elastic dawn, the flas.h.i.+ng sun, The limpid spread of air cerulean, Thou also re-appearest.

Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, Thou s.h.i.+p of air that never furl'st thy sails, Days, even weeks untired and onward, through s.p.a.ces, realms gyrating, At dusk that lookist 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 s.h.i.+p's Helm

Aboard at a s.h.i.+p'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 s.h.i.+p from its wreck-place.

For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition, The bows turn, the freighted s.h.i.+p tacking speeds away under her gray sails, The beautiful and n.o.ble s.h.i.+p with all her precious wealth speeds away gayly and safe.

But O the s.h.i.+p, the immortal s.h.i.+p! O s.h.i.+p aboard the s.h.i.+p!

s.h.i.+p of the body, s.h.i.+p of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.

On the Beach at Night

On the beach at night, Stands a child with her father, Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness, While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black ma.s.ses 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.

Weep not, child, Weep not, my darling, 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, Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge, They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall s.h.i.+ne out again, The great stars and the little ones shall s.h.i.+ne out again, they endure, The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again s.h.i.+ne.

Then dearest child mournest thou only for jupiter?

Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is, (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 nights, pa.s.sing away,) Something that shall endure longer even than l.u.s.trous 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, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, gra.s.s, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom, The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray, Pa.s.sions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do, The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere, The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.

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 s.h.i.+ning, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.

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, All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes, All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages, All ident.i.ties that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe, 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 s.h.i.+ps

1 To-day a rude brief recitative, Of s.h.i.+ps sailing the seas, each with its special flag or s.h.i.+p-signal, Of unnamed heroes in the s.h.i.+ps-of waves spreading and spreading far as the eye can reach, Of das.h.i.+ng spray, and the winds piping and blowing, And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations, Fitful, like a surge.

Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors, Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor death dismay.