Page:Leaves of Grass (1882).djvu/211

Rh Far, far at sea,

After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks,

With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,

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,

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 experiences, had'st thou my soul,

What joys! what joys were thine! 



at a ship's helm,

A young steersman steering with care.

Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,

An ocean-bell—O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves.

O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,

Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.

For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition,

The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails,

The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds away gayly and safe.

But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!

Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging. 



the beach at night,

Stands a child with her father,

Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,