Lo, I or you,
Or woman, man, or state, known or unknown,
We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,
But really build eidolons.
Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts,
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,
The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the
briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,
The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,
And this is ocean's poem.
Distant and dead resuscitate,
They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock myself.
orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.
I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of
my own body, or any part of it,
Translucent mould of me it shall be you!
will accept nothing which all cannot have their
counterpart of on the same terms.
The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,
Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation,
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls
restrain'd by decorum,
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?