264. With All Thy Gifts



WITH all thy gifts, America,       
(Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world,)       
Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee—With these, and like of these, vouchsafed to thee,       
What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultimate human problem never solving;)       
The gift of Perfect Women fit for thee—What of that gift of gifts thou lackest?            5   
The towering Feminine of thee? the beauty, health, completion, fit for thee?       
The Mothers fit for thee?

265. After the Sea-Ship



AFTER the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;       
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,       
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,       
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:       
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,            5   
Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves,       
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,       
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;       
Larger and smaller waves, in the spread of the ocean, yearnfully flowing;       
The wake of the Sea-Ship, after she passes—flashing and frolicsome, under the sun,     10   
A motley procession, with many a fleck of foam, and many fragments,       
Following the stately and rapid Ship—in the wake following.

266. Thou Reader



THOU reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,       
Therefore for thee the following chants.

267. To the Man-of-War-Bird



THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm,       
Waking renew’d on thy prodigious pinions,       
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended’st,       
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)       
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,            5   
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,       
(Myself a speck, a point on the world’s floating vast.)       
     
Far, far at sea,       
After the night’s fierce drifts have strewn the shores with wrecks,       
With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,     10   
The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,       
The limpid spread of air cerulean,       
Thou also re-appearest.       
     
Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)       
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,     15   
Thou ship of air that never furl’st thy sails,       
Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,       
At dusk that look’st on Senegal, at morn America,       
That sport’st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,       
In them, in thy experience, had’st thou my soul,     20   
What joys! what joys were thine!

268. Patroling Barnegat



WILD, wild the storm, and the sea high running,       
Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,       
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,       
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,       
Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,            5   
On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,       
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,       
Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,       
(That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?)       
Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,     10   
Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,       
Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,       
A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,       
That savage trinity warily watching.   

269. The Dalliance of the Eagles



SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)       
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,       
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,       
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,       
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,            5   
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,       
Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,       
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,       
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,       
She hers, he his, pursuing.

270. Roaming in Thought



ROAMING in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality,       
And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.

271. Gliding Over All



GLIDING o’er all, through all,       
Through Nature, Time, and Space,       
As a ship on the waters advancing,       
The voyage of the soul—not life alone,       
Death, many deaths I’ll sing.            5

272. Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour



HAST never come to thee an hour,       
A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles, fashions, wealth?       
These eager business aims—books, politics, art, amours,       
To utter nothingness?

273. As Consequent, Etc.



AS consequent from store of summer rains,       
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,       
Or many a herb-lined brook’s reticulations,       
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,       
Songs of continued years I sing.            5   
     
Life’s ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,       
With the old streams of death.)       
     
Some threading Ohio’s farm-fields or the woods,       
Some down Colorado’s cañons from sources of perpetual snow,       
Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,     10   
Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,       
Some to Atlantica’s bays, and so to the great salt brine.       
     
In you whoe’er you are my book perusing,       
In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,       
All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.     15   
     
Currents for starting a continent new,       
Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,       
Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves,       
(Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous’d and ominous too,       
Out of the depths the storm’s abysmic waves, who knows whence?     20   
Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter’d sail.)       
     
Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,       
A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.       
     
O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless,       
Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,     25   
Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity’s music faint and far,       
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica’s rim, strains for the soul of the prairies,       
Whisper’d reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously sounding,       
Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable,       
Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,     30   
(For not my life and years alone I give—all, all I give,)       
These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry,       
Wash’d on America’s shores?