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 LC| ELEMENTAL 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| Withdrawn far mocking me with mock congratulatory signs and bows | L |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)
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About Elemental Drifts
Elemental Drifts is a poem by Walt Whitman. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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