O sea! day and night I wend thy surf-beat shore,
Imaging to my sense thy varied strange suggestions—
The attractions, fascinations there are in sea and shore!

I fled down to the shores of the water, the salt weeds exposed at low water,
Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze,  the sniff of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks,
The fragrance of saltmarsh and shoremud,
The briny and damp smell of sedgy grass and fields by the shore.
I like the smell of the salt and sedge along the water,
I perceive that the sedgy weed has refreshing odors,
Perfume delightful to my nostrils

I wander’d alone over the beach, miles walking,
The sound of breaking waves the other side of me,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know.
I could listen forever to the hoarse music of the surf,
It is what I was born to—
I was born and brought up near the sea.

As I walked the beach, where the ripples continually wash,
I heard, dolefully ringing, an ocean-bell,
O a warning bell, rock’d by the waves,
The mournful notes foreboding a tempest,
White drift spooning ahead where the ship in the tempest dashes.
O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.

Through fog on a sea-coast I watch’d with joy the threatening maws of the waves,
I mark’d the milk-white combs where they career’d so high, curling over,
The beach cut by the razory ice-wind,
Spirits of foam flying far, and the free whistle, and the scent of the salt.

While the winds fann’d me and the waves came trooping toward me,
A succession of splendid and magnificent thunderstorms—
O howler and scooper of storms!
Rage, boil, vex, yawn wide, yeasty waves, crash away!
Crash heavier, heavier yet!

O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the beach!
I can but rush to the surf and let it drench me and freeze upon me.
Blow up sea-winds! Blow! blow! blow!
I like the north-west winds—the fearless tides,
To brace these—to take these naturally, heroically—as in themselves matters of course!

What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?
You oceans that have been calm within me!
How I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms,
O troubled reflection in the sea!

I heard the continuous thunder as it bellow’d after the lightning,
The roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,
The waves slowly rolling in, with a hoarse roar that is music to my ears,
That ceaseless, sulking, guttural of the sea as if to me its wrongs and toils in confidence.

As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
The fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
The savage old mother incessantly crying,
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
Some drown’d secret hissing.
O give me the clue! Of you O tides, the mystic human meaning,
A word then, (for I will conquer it.)

Throwing myself on the sand—
I throw myself upon your breast so broad, with open arms,
O firm, expanded shore, my father,
Kiss me my father, what is yours is mine,
Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring I envy,
I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,
I hold you so firm till you answer me something.

A word  subtle, sent up—
What is it?—I listen;
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?

Whereto answering, the sea of unshovelled and always-ready graves,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,
Lisp’d to me the key, the word up from the waves,
The word final, superior to all,
The low and delicious word death.

I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies of the sea,
He strikes out with courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs,
I see his undaunted eyes,
I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head foremost on the rocks,
Large imperious waves, raging over the vast, arousable to fury and to death.
What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves?
Will you kill the courageous giant in the prime of his middle age?

Steady and long he struggles,
Through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,
He is baffled, bang’d, bruis’d, he holds out while his strength holds out,
The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear him away, they roll him, swing him, turn him,
His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually bruis’d on rocks,
Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse, the beautiful lost swimmer. 

The sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves,
The wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds—
And there, singular, on ocean waves, downward, buoyant, swift,
Over the waters, an occupied coffin floating, to the ocean borne out,
The hidden and measureless ocean that pickest and cullest the race in time, with room for all.

Again I heard over the waves the little voice,
The hissing melodious rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me,
Edging near as privately for me, creeping to my feet, rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over:
Death, death, death, death, death—
That strong and delicious word which,
Like some old crone rocking the cradle,
Swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,
The sea whisper’d me,
And which I do not forget.

But I sail’d through the storm, I was refresh’d by the storm,
I thrill’d with the power’s pulsations,
Till the tissues that held me parted their ties upon me.
O storms! you have done me good,
O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!
The tale of cosmic elemental passion thou tellest to a kindred soul,
A phantom in the night thy confidant for once.

Ease not your moaning you fierce old mother,
Endlessly cry for your castaways,
But do you wait a moment, fear not, deny not me,
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or gather from you.

Confronting the waves to splash the water,
I wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Walk barefoot in the edge of the water, ankle-deep,
Or race naked along the shore.
I hear the soothing, rumbling murmuring of the waves,
Whispering to congratulate me.

You sea! I resign myself to you—I guess what you mean,
I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me,
We must have a turn together.
I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land,
Bathing in this pure, clear, salt water is one of my best pleasures—
Slight shock of the soothe of waves; the sea is so soothing, so sympathetic,
Then a splendid swim and souse in the surf.

High and clear my voice over the waves—
This is no cheat, the liquid wash of the sea,
This transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me,
It is safe to strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,
Allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
And be refreshed by storms, immensity, liberty, action.

Capricious and dainty sea! I am integral with you—
Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O, I the same.
O yearnful waves! the kisses of your lips!
Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse,
Dash me with amorous wet,
The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie, willing and naked—
I can repay you.

As the shores of the sea I live near and love are to me,
So are the shores of all the seas of the earth to those who live near and love them.
What is it in us, arous’d by those indirections and directions?
By that long scan of waves, myself call’d back, some retrospect,
Joys, travels, studies—silent panoramas, scenes ephemeral.

As I sit here on a clump of sand by the sea shore,
From the sea of time collecting, vasting all,
I bring a windrow-drift of weeds and shells,
Waifs from the deep, cast high and dry.
O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless!
Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still call up?
Whisper’d reverberations, eternity’s music faint and far.

From where I sit I look out, hours enjoying it, for it suits me,
I behold the sea itself, and on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships,
I behold the sail and steamships of the world on their voyages,
Sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes,
Steamboats and clippers taking the measure of all seas.

Song for all seas, all ships:
See, the steamers coming and going,
The large and small steamers in motion—
The steamship trails hindways its long pennant of smoke, dusky and undulating;
See, vessels silently sailing in every direction in the distance,
Their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green and blue—
The battleship, perfect-model’d, majestic, that I saw pass the offing today under full sail;
The Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail, she cuts the sparkle and scud;
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—
A ship in full sail is the grandest sight in the world.

The regatta is spread on the bay—how the white sails sparkle!
It is a beautiful thing to see the vessels, countless ships,
Mighty hulls dark-gliding in the distance, moving swiftly surrounded by myriads of small craft, 
Sometimes a hundred or more all in sight at once, moving so gracefully on the water.

Or some lone bark buoy’d on the dense marine,
Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails,
She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day,
Or under many a star at night,
Spreading all sails, carrying even her moonsails, she speeds so stately.

Below emulous waves press forward,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam,
And the wake of the sea-ship after she passes,
Following the stately and rapid ship, flashing and frolicsome under the sun.

A chant for the sailors of all nations,
This song for mariners and all their ships:
I behold the mariners of the world, sailors of many a ship,
Sea-captains young or old, and the mates,
The whale-crews of the south Pacific and the north Atlantic, and all intrepid sailors,
Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, 
Embodying thee, indomitable, untamed as thee,
Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas.

Some are in storms, with many a broken spar and tatter’d sail,
Some in the night with the watch on the lookout,
Some drifting helplessly, some with contagious diseases.
Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living sea, to you O sailors,
And do you carry them swiftly to the whole world, you sea.

Perhaps the tenderest and gratefulest breath of my heart has gone, and ever goes, over the sea gales,
O’er the boundless blue from me to every sea,
Consort to every ship that sails,
Saluting, cheerily hailing each mate, met or pass’d, little or big,
For companionship and good will forever to all and each.

NEXT: RIVERS AND STREAMS

The texts in this anthology should NOT be cited as direct quotations from Whitman. If you want to quote from this site for something you are writing or posting, please read this first (click here).