Land! land! O land!

Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back

again if you only would,

For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.

O rising stars!

Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some

Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.

Shake out carols!

Solitary here, the night's carols!

Carols of lonesome love! death's carols!

Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!

O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea!

O reckless despairing carols.

But soft! sink low!

Soft! let me just murmur,

And do you wait a moment you husky-nois'd sea,

For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,

So faint, I must be still, be still to listen,

But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately

to me.

Hither my love!

Here I am! here!

With this just-sustain'd note I announce myself to you,
This gentle call is for you my love, for you.

That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice,

13

That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray, artistic

Those are the shadows of leaves.

O darkness! O in vain!

OI am very sick and sorrowful.

O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea!

O troubled reflection in the sea!

O throat! O throbbing heart!

And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.

The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling,

The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the
face of the sea almost touching,

The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the
atmosphere dallying,

The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultu

ously bursting,

The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,

The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,

The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,

The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,

To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd secret

hissing,

To the outsetting bard.

Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,)

Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?

For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I have

heard you,

Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,

And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder

and more sorrowful than yours,

A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.

O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,

O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating

you,

Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,

Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,

Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what

there in the night,

By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,

The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.

O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,)

O if I am to have so much, let me have more!

A word then, (for I will conquer it,)

The word final, superior to all,

Subtle, sent up-what is it? I listen;

[waves?

Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?

5

Whereto answering, the sea,

Delaying not, hurrying not,

2

6

[break,

Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before day-
Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,

And again death, death, death, death,

[heart/

Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's

15

But edging
near as privately for me rustling at my feet,, [over,
Creeping thence steady up to my ears and vitig me softly di
Death, death, death, death, death.

Which I do not forget,

But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,

That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach,

With the thousand responsive songs at random,

My own songs awaked from that hour,

And with them the key, the word up from the waves,

The word of the sweetest song and all songs,

That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,

(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet

garments, bending aside,)

The sea whisper'd me.

As 1 Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life.

I

As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,

As I wended the shores I know,

As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok, 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 southward,

Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems, Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,

The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe.

Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender windrows,

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 like

nesses,

These you presented to me you fish-shaped island,

As I wended the shores I know,

As I walk'd with that electric self seeking types.

2

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,