No More Learning

Whereto answering, the Sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whispered me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,
Lisped to me the low and delicious word DEATH;
And again Death--ever Death, Death, Death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my aroused child's heart,
But edging near, as privately for me, rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears, and laving me softly all over,
Death, Death, Death, Death, Death.

Which I do not forget,
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's grey beach,
With the thousand responsive songs, at random,
My own songs, awaked from that hour;
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song, and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
The Sea whispered me.



_CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY. _


1.

Flood-tide below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to
face.


2.

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are
to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home,
are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me,
and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.


3.

The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;
The simple, compact, well-joined scheme--myself disintegrated, every one
disintegrated, yet part of the scheme;
The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings--on the
walk in the street, and the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away;
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others--the life, love, sight, hearing, of others.

Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights
of Brooklyn to the south and east;
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour
high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see
them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back
to the sea of the ebb-tide.
It avails not, neither time nor place--distance avails not;
I am with you--you men and women of a generation, or ever so many
generations hence;
I project myself--also I return--I am with you, and know how it is.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refreshed by the gladness of the river and the bright flow,
I was refreshed;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I
stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the
thick-stemmed pipes of steamboats, I looked.

I too many and many a time crossed the river, the sun half an hour high;
I watched the twelfth-month sea-gulls--I saw them high in the air, floating
with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
I saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies, and left the
rest in strong shadow,
I saw the slow-wheeling circles, and the gradual edging toward the south.

I too saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Looked at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head
in the sun-lit water,
Looked on the haze on the hills southward and southwestward,
Looked on the vapour as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Looked toward the lower bay to notice the arriving ships,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,
The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars.
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine
pennants,
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their
pilot-houses,
The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the
wheels,
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome
crests and glistening,
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the grey walls of the granite
store-houses by the docks,
On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flanked on each
side by the barges--the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
On the neighbouring shore, the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high
and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow light,
over the tops of houses and down into the clefts of streets.

These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you;
I project myself a moment to tell you--also I return.

I loved well those cities;
I loved well the stately and rapid river;
The men and women I saw were all near to me;
Others the same--others who look back on me because I looked forward to
them;
The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.

What is it, then, between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not--distance avails not, and place avails not.

I too lived--Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine;
I too walked the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters
around it;
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me;
In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.

I too had been struck from the float for ever held in solution, I too had
received identity by my Body;
That I was, I knew, was of my body--and what I should be, I knew, I should
be of my body.

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw patches down upon me also;
The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious;
My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
would not people laugh at me?

It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil;
I am he who knew what it was to be evil;
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabbed, blushed, resented, lied, stole, grudged;
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak;
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant;
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me;
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting;
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting.

But I was Manhattanese, friendly and proud!
I was called by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they
saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their
flesh against me as I sat;
Saw many I loved in the street, or ferry-boat, or public assembly, yet
never told them a word;
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing,
sleeping;
Played the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it,--as great as we like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.