 | Leaves of grass. |  |
1
1 ELEMENTAL
drifts!
O I wish I could impress others as you and the waves have just been impressing me.
2 As I ebb'd with an ebb of the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd where the sea-ripples wash you, Pau- manok,
Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off south- ward,
Alone, held by this eternal self of me, out of the pride of which I have utter'd my poems,
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines under- foot,
In the rim, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe.
3 Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, drop't, to follow those slender winrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea- gluten,
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide;
Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me,
Paumanok, there and then, as I thought the old thought of likenesses,
These you presented to me, you fish-shaped island,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd with that eternal self of me, seeking types.
O I wish I could impress others as you and the waves have just been impressing me.
2 As I ebb'd with an ebb of the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd where the sea-ripples wash you, Pau- manok,
Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off south- ward,
Alone, held by this eternal self of me, out of the pride of which I have utter'd my poems,
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines under- foot,
In the rim, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe.
3 Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, drop't, to follow those slender winrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea- gluten,
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide;
Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me,
Paumanok, there and then, as I thought the old thought of likenesses,
332
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd with that eternal self of me, seeking types.
| Leaves of grass. | |