The untold want by life and land ne’er granted,
Now voyager sail forth to seek and find.

O to sail in cabin’d ships at sea,
To escape, to sail forth in a ship under full sail,  
(At home in the fleet, sailing with the rest and tacking,
I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck,
I take my place late at night in the crow’s-nest.)
To leave this steady unendurable land,
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks, and the houses,
To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,
To sail and sail and sail!

O to be on the sea! the wind, the wide waters around,
Copious the islands beyond, the little and large sea-dots,
Numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea, thick as stars in the sky.
To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,
Sailing henceforth to every land, to every sea,
The sailor that sails the sea stormier, vaster than any,
Swarthy, strong, ugly, and nonchalant.

To be a ship itself,
To stretch with stretched and level waters, as a ship on the waters advancing,
To sail out over the measureless seas,
The superior oceans and the inferior ones,
Myself a speck, a point on the world’s floating vast,
Like a sufficiently splendid solitary ship;
See indeed the restless keel, these sails I spread to the sun and air,
On the soul’s voyage.

The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions,
Lo, soul, to thee, thy sight, they rise.
The soul adjusts itself to the ideas of God, of space, and of eternity,
And sails them at will as oceans,
Gliding o’er all, through all,
Through nature, time, and space—there is space enough—
A swift and swelling ship full of joys, sailing and ever sailing,
Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.

O we can wait no longer,
However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters, we must not anchor here—
Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
Cut the hawsers—haul out—up with your anchor—shake out every sail! 

As in some ancient legend, there is a farewell gathering on ship’s deck and on shore,
The sailors heave at the capstan,
A loosing of hawsers and ties, a spreading of sails to the wind,
A starting out on unknown seas.
We too take ship, hoist instantly the anchor—
A new manhood, a fresh start,
Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure,
No more returning to these shores.

(Undismay’d amid the rapids, amid the irresistible and deadly urge,
Stands a helmsman, with brow elate and strong hand,
A young steersman steering with care.
The elder encourages the younger and shows him how,
They two shall launch off fearlessly.) 

Dear camerado!
I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,
For we are starting out on unknown seas, to fetch up no one knows whither.
I launch all men and women forward with me into the unknown;
Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,
Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail. 

We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion, the tones of unseen mystery,
We will go where winds blow, waves dash,
Amid the slapping waves, amid the wafting winds,
We will sail pathless and wild seas,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow.
Thus we presume to travel by maps yet unmade, where mariner has not yet dared to go,
No map there, nor guide,
All is a blank before us,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
But the boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived power, but in his own right—
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To give play to yourself and not depend on me, or on anyone but yourself,
To jump off in the midst of the unsounded sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair. 

Now speed on really deep waters, steer for the deep waters only,
Allons! the inducements shall be greater,
As we take to the open, take to the deepest, freest waters,
Now on for aye our infinite free venture wending,
Spurning all yet tried ports, seas, hawsers, densities, gravitation,
Venturing, daring, as we go the unknown ways,
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God? 

O farther, farther, farther sail!
The voyage we pursue does not fail,
And fair winds always fill the ship’s sails that sail thee!

NEXT: RELIGION

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).