IN CABIN'D SHIPS AT SEA
by Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
In cabin'd ships at sea,
The boundless blue on every side expanding,
With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large
imperious waves,
Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,
Where joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails,
She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of
day, or under many a star at night,
By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of
the land, be read,
In full rapport at last.
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.
Then falter not, O book, fulfil your destiny,
You not a reminiscence of the land alone,
You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know
not whither, yet ever full of faith,
Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!
Bear forth to them folded my love (dear marines, for you I
fold it here in every leaf);
Speed on my book! spread your white sails, my little bark,
athwart the imperious waves,
Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to
every sea,
This song for mariners and all their ships.
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