University of Virginia Library

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.