Leaves of Grass (1860)
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| AS I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while
the music is playing, |
| To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral,
in mist, of a wreck at sea, |
| Of the flower of the marine science of fifty genera-
tions, foundered off the Northeast coast, and going down—Of the steamship Arctic going down, |
| Of the veiled tableau—Women gathered together
on deck, pale, heroic, waiting the moment that draws so close—O the moment! |
)
|
| O the huge sob—A few bubbles—the white foam
spirting up—And then the women gone, |
| Sinking there, while the passionless wet flows on—
And I now pondering, Are those women indeed gone? |
| Are Souls drowned and destroyed so? |
| Is only matter triumphant? |