Elemental Drifts Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABC DEBFGFHIFJK LLMJFCLFEL FFCNFNF OPHQFFLMR FS TCU VBHU CFN BFLCF NCB NTHC WNCXV UCY YLLFBLNZA2B2BC2NLXVB F LCELEMENTAL drifts | A |
How I wish I could impress others as you have just been impressing | B |
me | C |
- | |
As I ebb'd with an ebb of the ocean of life | D |
As I wended the shores I know | E |
As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok | B |
Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant | F |
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways | G |
I musing late in the autumn day gazing off southward | F |
Alone held by this eternal Self of me out of the pride of which I | H |
utter my poems | I |
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot | F |
In the rim the sediment that stands for all the water and all the | J |
land of the globe | K |
- | |
Fascinated my eyes reverting from the south dropt to follow those | L |
slender winrows | L |
Chaff straw splinters of wood weeds and the sea gluten | M |
Scum scales from shining rocks leaves of salt lettuce left by the | J |
tide | F |
Miles walking the sound of breaking waves the other side of me | C |
Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses | L |
These you presented to me you fish shaped island | F |
As I wended the shores I know | E |
As I walk'd with that eternal Self of me seeking types | L |
- | |
- | |
As I wend to the shores I know not | F |
As I list to the dirge the voices of men and women wreck'd | F |
As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me | C |
As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer | N |
I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd up drift | F |
A few sands and dead leaves to gather | N |
Gather and merge myself as part of the sands and drift | F |
- | |
O baffled balk'd bent to the very earth | O |
Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth | P |
Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I | H |
have not once had the least idea who or what I am | Q |
But that before all my insolent poems the real ME stands yet | F |
untouch'd untold altogether unreach'd | F |
Withdrawn far mocking me with mock congratulatory signs and bows | L |
With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written | M |
Pointing in silence to these songs and then to the sand beneath | R |
- | |
Now I perceive I have not understood anything not a single object | F |
and that no man ever can | S |
- | |
I perceive Nature here in sight of the sea is taking advantage of | T |
me to dart upon me and sting me | C |
Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all | U |
- | |
- | |
You oceans both I close with you | V |
We murmur alike reproachfully rolling our sands and drift knowing | B |
not why | H |
These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all | U |
- | |
You friable shore with trails of debris | C |
You fish shaped island I take what is underfoot | F |
What is yours is mine my father | N |
- | |
I too Paumanok | B |
I too have bubbled up floated the measureless float and been wash'd | F |
on your shores | L |
I too am but a trail of drift and debris | C |
I too leave little wrecks upon you you fish shaped island | F |
- | |
I throw myself upon your breast my father | N |
I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me | C |
I hold you so firm till you answer me something | B |
- | |
Kiss me my father | N |
Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love | T |
Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring I | H |
envy | C |
- | |
- | |
Ebb ocean of life the flow will return | W |
Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother | N |
Endlessly cry for your castaways but fear not deny not me | C |
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or | X |
gather from you | V |
- | |
I mean tenderly by you and all | U |
I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we | C |
lead and following me and mine | Y |
- | |
Me and mine | Y |
We loose winrows little corpses | L |
Froth snowy white and bubbles | L |
See from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last | F |
See the prismatic colors glistening and rolling | B |
Tufts of straw sands fragments | L |
Buoy'd hither from many moods one contradicting another | N |
From the storm the long calm the darkness the swell | Z |
Musing pondering a breath a briny tear a dab of liquid or soil | A2 |
Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown | B2 |
A limp blossom or two torn just as much over waves floating | B |
drifted at random | C2 |
Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature | N |
Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud trumpets | L |
We capricious brought hither we know not whence spread out before | X |
you | V |
You up there walking or sitting | B |
Whoever you are we too lie in drifts at your feet | F |
- | |
Sea raff Crook tongued waves | L |
O I will yet sing some day what you have said to me | C |
Walt Whitman
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Elemental Drifts poem by Walt Whitman
Best Poems of Walt Whitman