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Leaves of Grass (1871-72)
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AS I EBB'D WITH THE OCEAN OF LIFE.
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HOW I wish I could impress others as you have just
been impressing me!
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2 As I ebb'd with an an ebb of the ocean of life, |
As I wended the shores I know, |
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As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you,
Paumanok,
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Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant, |
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her
castaways,
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I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off south-
ward,
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Alone, held by this eternal self of me, out of the pride
of which I utter my poems,
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Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines under-
foot,
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In the rim, the sediment that stands for all the water
and all the land of the globe.
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2
4 As I wend to the shores I know not, |
As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women
wreck'd,
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As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon
me,
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As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and
closer,
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I, too, but signify, at the utmost, a little wash'd-up
drift,
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A few sands and dead leaves to gather, |
Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and
drift.
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5 O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth, |
Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my
mouth,
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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,
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But that before all my arrogant poems the real ME
stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether un-
reach'd,
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Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory
signs and bows,
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With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I
have written,
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Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand
beneath.
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6 Now I perceive I have not understood any thing—not
a single object—and that no man ever can.
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7 I perceive Nature, here in sight of the sea, is taking
advantage of me, to dart upon me, and sting me,
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Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all. |
3
8 You oceans both! I close with you; |
We murmur alike reproachfully, rolling sands and
drift, knowing not why,
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These little shreds indeed, standing for you and me
and all.
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9 You friable shore, with trails of debris! |
You fish-shaped island! I take what is underfoot; |
What is yours is mine, my father. |
I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float,
and been wash'd on your shores;
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I too am but a trail of drift and debris; |
I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped
island.
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11 I throw myself upon your breast, my father, |
I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me, |
I hold you so firm, till you answer me something. |
Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love, |
Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the
murmuring I envy.
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4
13 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,
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Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, as I
touch you, or gather from you.
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14 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.
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We, loose windrows, 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,
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From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell; |
Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of
liquid or soil;
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Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented
and thrown;
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A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves
floating, drifted at random;
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Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature; |
Just as much, whence we come, that blare of the cloud-
trumpets;
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We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence,
spread out before you,
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You, up there, walking or sitting, |
Whoever you are—we too lie in drifts at your feet. |
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