I, too, Paumanok,
I, too, have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been
washed on your shores.
XII.
I, too, am but a trail of drift and debris,--
I, too, leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island!
XIII.
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.
XIV.
Kiss me, my father!
Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love!
Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the wondrous
murmuring I envy!
For I fear I shall become crazed, if I cannot emulate it, and utter
myself as well as it.
XV.
Sea-raff! Torn leaves!
Oh, I sing, some day, what you have certainly said to me!
XVI.
Ebb, ocean of life! (the flow will return,)--
Cease not your moaning, you fierce old mother!
Endlessly cry for your castaways! Yet fear not, deny not me,--
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, as I touch you,
or gather from you.
XVII.
I mean tenderly by you,--
I gather for myself, and for this phantom, looking down where we lead,
and following me and mine.
XVIII.
Me and mine!
We, loose windrows, little corpses,
Froth, snowy white, and bubbles,
Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,
Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another,
From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell,
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,
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.
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