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Leaves of Grass.
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1.
1. Elemental drifts!
O I wish I could impress others as you and the waves
have just been impressing me.
2. As I ebbed with an ebb of the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walked where the sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok,
Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her
castaways,
I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatens
to get the better of me, and stifle me,
Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines
underfoot,
In the rim, the sediment, that stands for all the water
and all the land of the globe.
(195)
