 | Leaves of grass (1872) |  |
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As I wend to the shores I know not,As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd,
As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
I too, but signify, at the utmost, a little wash'd-up drift,
A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.
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O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth,Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,
Aware now, that, amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not once had the least idea who or what I am,
But that before all my insolent poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,
Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,
With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,
Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.
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Now I perceive I have not understood anything—not a single object—and that no man ever can.7
I perceive Nature, here in sight of the sea, is taking advantage of me, to dart upon me, and sting me,Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.
| Leaves of grass (1872) | |