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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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PASSAGE TO INDIA.
1
Singing the great achievements of the present, |
Singing the strong light works of engineers, |
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,) |
In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal, |
The New by its mighty railroad spann'd, |
The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires, |
I sound, to commence, the cry with thee, O soul, |
The Past! the Past! the Past! |
2 The Past! the dark unfathom'd retrospect! |
The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows! |
The past! the infinite greatness of the past! |
For what is the present, after all, but a growth out of the past? |
(As a projectile form'd, impell'd, passing a certain line,
still keeps on,
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So the present, utterly form'd, impell'd by the past.) |
2
3 Passage, O soul to India! |
Eclaircise the myths Asiatic—the primitive fables. |
4 Not you alone, proud truths of the world! |
Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science! |
But myths and fables of eld—Asia's, Africa's fables! |
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The far-darting beams of the spirit—the unloos'd
dreams!
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The deep diving bibles and legends; |
The daring plots of the poets—the elder religions; |
—O you temples fairer than lilies, pour'd over by the
rising sun!
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O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of
the known, mounting to heaven!
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You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses,
burnish'd with gold!
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Towers of fables immortal, fashion'd from mortal
dreams!
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You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest; |
3
Lo, soul! seest thou not God's purpose from the first? |
The earth to be spann'd, connected by net-work, |
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in mar-
riage,
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The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near, |
The lands to be welded together. |
You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours! |
You engineers! you architects, machinists, yours! |
You, not for trade or transportation only, |
But in God's name, and for thy sake, O soul. |
4
Lo, soul, for thee, of tableaus twain, |
I see, in one, the Suez canal initiated, open'd, |
I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Euge-
nie's leading the van;
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I mark, from on deck, the strange landscape, the pure
sky, the level sand in the distance;
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I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen
gather'd,
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The gigantic dredging machines. |
8 In one again, different, (yet thine, all thine, O soul,
the same,)
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I see over my own continent the Pacific Railroad, sur-
mounting every barrier;
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I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte,
carrying freight and passengers;
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I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the
shrill steam-whistle,
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I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest
scenery in the world;
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I cross the Laramie plains—I note the rocks in gro-
tesque shapes, the buttes;
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I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions—the bar-
ren, colorless, sage-deserts;
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I see in glimpses afar, or towering immediately above
me, the great mountains—I see the Wind river
and the Wahsatch mountains;
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I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle's Nest—
I pass the Promontory—I ascend the Nevadas;
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I scan the noble Elk mountain, and wind around its
base,
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I see the Humboldt range—I thread the valley and
cross the river,
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I see the clear waters of Lake Tahoe—I see forests of
majestic pines,
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Or, crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I be-
hold enchanting mirages of waters and meadows;
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Marking through these, and after all, in duplicate slen-
der lines,
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Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land
travel,
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Tying the Eastern to the Western sea, |
The road between Europe and Asia. |
9 (Ah Genoese, thy dream! thy dream! |
Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave, |
The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream!) |
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5
Struggles of many a captain—tales of many a sailor
dead!
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Over my mood, stealing and spreading they come, |
Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach'd sky. |
11 Along all history, down the slopes, |
As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again to
the surface rising,
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A ceaseless thought, a varied train—Lo, soul! to thee,
thy sight, they rise,
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The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions: |
Again Vasco de Gama sails forth; |
Again the knowledge gain'd, the mariner's compass, |
Lands found, and nations born—thou born America,
(a hemisphere unborn,)
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For purpose vast, man's long probation fill'd, |
Thou, rondure of the world, at last accomplish'd. |
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12 O, vast Rondure, swimming in space, |
Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty! |
Alternate light and day, and the teeming, spiritual
darkness;
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Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and
countless stars above;
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Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, moun-
tains, trees;
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With inscrutable purpose—some hidden prophetic
intention,
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Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span thee. |
13 Down from the gardens of Asia, descending, radiat-
ing,
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Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after
them,
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Wandering, yearning, curious—with restless explo-
rations,
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With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish—with
never-happy hearts,
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With that sad, incessant refrain, Wherefore, unsatisfied
soul? and, Whither O mocking life?
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14 Ah who shall soothe these feverish children? |
Who justify these restless explorations? |
Who speak the secret of impassive Earth? |
Who bind it to us? What is this separate Nature, so
unnatural?
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What is this Earth to our affections? (unloving earth,
without a throb to answer ours;
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Cold earth, the place of graves.) |
15 Yet, soul, be sure the first intent remains—and shall
be carried out;
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(Perhaps even now the time has arrived.) |
16 After the seas are all cross'd, (as they seem already
cross'd,)
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After the great captains and engineers have accomplish'd
their work,
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After the noble inventors—after the scientists, the
chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,
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Finally shall come the Poet, worthy that name; |
The true Son of God shall come, singing his songs. |
17 Then, not your deeds only, O voyagers, O scientists
and inventors, shall be justified,
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All these hearts as of fretted children shall be sooth'd, |
All affection shall be fully responded to—the secret
shall be told;
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All these separations and gaps shall be taken up, and
hook'd and link'd together;
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The whole Earth—this cold, impassive, voiceless Earth,
shall be completely justified;
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Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish'd and
compacted by the true son of God, the poet,
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(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains, |
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He shall double the Cape of Good Hope to some pur-
pose;)
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Nature and Man shall be disjoin'd and diffused no more, |
The true Son of God shall absolutely fuse them. |
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18 Year at whose open'd, wide-flung door I sing! |
Year of the purpose accomplish'd! |
Year of the marriage of continents, climates and
oceans!
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(No mere Doge of Venice now, wedding the Adriatic,) |
I see, O year, in you, the vast terraqueous globe, given,
and giving all,
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Europe to Asia, Africa join'd, and they to the New
World;
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The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival
garland,
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As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand. |
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Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man, |
The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again. |
20 Lo, soul, the retrospect, brought forward; |
The old, most populous, wealthiest of Earth's lands, |
The streams of the Indus and the Ganges and their many
many affluents;
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(I, my shores of America walking to-day, behold, resum-
ing all,)
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The tale of Alexander, on his warlike marches, suddenly
dying,
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On one side China and on the other side Persia and
Arabia,
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To the south the great seas and the Bay of Bengal; |
The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions,
castes,
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Old occult Brahma, interminably far back—the tender
and junior Buddha,
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Central and southern empires and all their belongings,
possessors,
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The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe, |
The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians,
Byzantium, the Arabs, Portuguese,
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The first travelers, famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta
the Moor,
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Doubts to be solv'd, the map incognita, blanks to be
fill'd,
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The foot of man unstay'd, the hands never at rest, |
Thyself, O soul, that will not brook a challenge. |
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21 The medieval navigators rise before me, |
The world of 1492, with its awaken'd enterprise; |
Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of
the earth in spring,
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The sunset splendor of chivalry declining. |
22 And who art thou sad shade? |
Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary, |
With majestic limbs, and pious, beaming eyes, |
Spreading around, with every look of thine, a golden
world,
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Enhuing it with gorgeous hues. |
23 As the chief histrion, |
Down to the footlights walks, in some great scena, |
Dominating the rest, I see the Admiral himself, |
(History's type of courage, action, faith;) |
Behold him sail from Palos, leading his little fleet; |
His voyage behold—his return—his great fame, |
His misfortunes, calumniators—behold him a prisoner,
chain'd,
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Behold his dejection, poverty, death. |
24 (Curious, in time, I stand, noting the efforts of
heroes;
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Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty,
death?
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Lies the seed unreck'd for centuries in the ground?
Lo! to God's due occasion,
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Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms, |
And fills the earth with use and beauty.) |
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25 Passage indeed, O soul, to primal thought! |
Not lands and seas alone—thy own clear freshness, |
The young maturity of brood and bloom; |
To realms of budding bibles. |
26 O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me, |
Thy circumnavigation of the world begin, |
Of man, the voyage of his mind's return, |
To reason's early paradise, |
Back, back to wisdom's birth, to innocent intuitions, |
Again with fair creation. |
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27 O we can wait no longer! |
We too take ship, O soul! |
Joyous, we too launch out on trackless seas! |
Fearless, for unknown shores, on waves of ecstasy to
sail,
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Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I
thee to me, O soul,)
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Caroling free—singing our song of God, |
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration. |
28 With laugh, and many a kiss, |
(Let others deprecate—let others weep for sin, remorse,
humiliation;)
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O soul thou pleasest me—I thee. |
29 Ah, more than any priest, O soul, we too believe in God, |
But with the mystery of God we dare not dally. |
30 O soul, thou pleasest me—I thee; |
Sailing these seas, or on the hills, or waking in the night,
night,
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Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and
Death, like waters flowing,
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Bear me indeed, as through the regions infinite, |
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear—lave me all
over;
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Bathe me, O God, in thee—mounting to thee, |
I and my soul to range in range of thee. |
Nameless—the fibre and the breath! |
Light of the light—shedding forth universes—thou
centre of them,
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Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving! |
Thou moral, spiritual fountain! affection's source!
thou reservoir!
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(O pensive soul of me! O thirst unsatisfied! waitest not
there?
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Waitest not haply for us, somewhere there, the Com-
rade perfect?)
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Thou pulse! thou motive of the stars, suns, systems, |
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious, |
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space! |
How should I think—how breathe a single breath—
how speak, if, out of myself,
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I could not launch, to those, superior universes? |
32 Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God, |
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death, |
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me, |
And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs, |
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death, |
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space. |
33 Greater than stars or suns, |
Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth; |
—What love, than thine and ours could wider amplify? |
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours, O soul? |
What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, per-
fection, strength?
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What cheerful willingness, for others' sake, to give up
all?
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For others' sake to suffer all? |
34 Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time
achiev'd.
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(The seas all cross'd, weather'd the capes, the voyage
done,)
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Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim
attain'd,
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As, fill'd with friendship, love complete, the Elder
Brother found,
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The Younger melts in fondness in his arms. |
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35 Passage to more than India! |
Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights? |
O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those? |
Disportest thou on waters such as those? |
Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas? |
Then have thy bent unleash'd. |
36 Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas! |
Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling
problems!
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You, strew'd with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living,
never reach'd you.
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37 Passage to more than India! |
O secret of the earth and sky! |
Of you, O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and
rivers!
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Of you, O woods and fields! Of you, strong mountains
of my land!
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Of you, O prairies! Of you, gray rocks! |
O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows! |
O day and night, passage to you! |
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38 O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and
Jupiter!
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39 Passage—immediate passage! the blood burns in my
veins!
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Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor! |
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail! |
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long
enough?
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Have we not grovel'd here long enough, eating and
drinking like mere brutes?
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Have we not darken'd and dazed ourselves with books
long enough?
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40 Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! |
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with
me;
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For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to
go,
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And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. |
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of
God?
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O farther, farther, farther sail! |
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THOUGHT.
AS I sit with others at a great feast, suddenly, while
the music is playing,
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To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral, in
mist of a wreck at sea;
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Of certain ships—how they sail from port with flying
streamers and wafted kisses—and that is the
last of them!
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Of the solemn and murky mystery about the fate of the
President,
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Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations,
founder'd off the Northeast coast, and going
down—Of the steamship Arctic going down,
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Of the veil'd tableau—Women gather'd together on
deck, pale, heroic, waiting the moment that
draws so close—O the moment!
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A huge sob—a few bubbles—the white foam spirting
up—and then the women gone,
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Sinking there while the passionless wet flows on—And
I now pondering, Are those women indeed gone?
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Are Souls drown'd and destroy'd so? |
Is only matter triumphant? |
O LIVING ALWAYS—ALWAYS DYING.
O LIVING always—always dying! |
O the burials of me past and present! |
O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious
as ever!
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O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not,—
I am content;)
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O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which
I turn and look at where I cast them!
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To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the
corpses behind!
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