Kiss me, my father, Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love, 50 Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the murmuring I envy.1 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 hoarse 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! We, loose winrows, 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, 60 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; 70 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. 1 After line 52, 1860 adds "For I fear I shall become crazed, if I cannot emulate it, and utter myself as well as it. Sea-raff! Crook-tongued waves, O, I will yet sing, some day, what you have said to me." In the night, in solitude, tears; On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand ; Tears-not a star shining-all dark and desolate; Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled 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! ΙΟ 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 un loosen'd ocean, Of tears! tears! tears! ABOARD, AT A SHIP'S HELM. First published in 1867. ABOARD, at a ship's helm, A young steersman, steering with care. A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell's admoni tion, The bows turn, -the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her gray sails, The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds away gaily and safe. But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship! 10 O ship of the body-ship of the soul-voyaging, voyaging, voyaging. ON THE BEACH, AT NIGHT. ON the beach, at night, Stands a child, with her father, I Watching the east, the autumn sky. Up through the darkness, While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spread ing, Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky, Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east, And nigh at hand, only a very little above, Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades. 10 2 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-shall 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 shine out again, 20 The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again—they endure; The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall again shine. 3 Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter? Something there is, (With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper, I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,) (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,) THE WORLD BELOW THE BRINE. First published in 1867. 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, the openings, and the 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, grass, 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 sealeopard, and the sting-ray; Passions 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; ΙΟ The change onward from ours, to that of beings who walk other spheres. す ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE. First published in 1856, under title of "Clef Poem." 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 shining-I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future." 11856 '60 begin the poem "This Night I am happy." Line I added in 1867. 2 Line 2 added in 1860, which reads "As I walk the beach where the old mother sways to and fro, singing her savage and husky song." 3 After line 3, 1856 '60 add: A VAST SIMILITDUE interlocks all, All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids, All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same, 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 men and women-me also; All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages; All identities 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 them, and enclose them.' "What can the future bring me more than I have? Do you suppose I wish to enjoy life in other spheres? I say distinctly I comprehend no better sphere than this earth, I comprehend no better life than the life of my body. I do not know what follows the death of my body, But I know well that whatever it is, it is best for me, And I know well that whatever is really Me shall live just as much as before. I am not uneasy but I shall have good housing to myself, But this is my first-how can I like the rest any better? Here I grew up the studs and rafters are grown parts of me. I am not uneasy but I am to be beloved by young and old men, and to love them the same, I suppose the pink nipples of the breasts of women with whom I shall sleep will taste the same to my lips,* But this is the nipple of a breast of my mother, always near and always divine to me, her true child and son, whatever comes.† I suppose I am to be eligible to visit the stars, in my time, I suppose I shall have myriads of new experiences-and that the experience of this earth will prove only one out of myriads; But I believe my body and my Soul already indicate those experiences, I have already found on the earth, And I believe I have this night a clew through the universes, And I believe I have this night thought a thought of the clef of eternity." "and enclose them" added in 1870. * 1860 reads "will touch the side of my face the same." |