You sea! I resign myself to you also . . . . 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,
Cushion me soft . . . . rock me in billowy drowse,
Dash me with amorous wet . . . . I can repay you.
 
Sea of stretched ground-swells!
 
Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths!
 
Sea of the brine of life! Sea of unshovelled and always-ready graves!
 
Howler and scooper of storms! Capricious and dainty sea!
 
I am integral with you . . . . I too am of one phase and of all phases.
 
Partaker of influx and efflux . . . . extoler of hate and conciliation,
Extoler of amies and those that sleep in each others' arms.
 
I am he attesting sympathy;
Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them?
 
I am the poet of commonsense and of the demonstrable and of immortality;
And am not the poet of goodness only . . . . I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.
 
Washes and razors for foofoos .... for me freckles and a bristling beard.
 
What blurt is it about virtue and about vice?
 
Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me . . . . I stand indifferent,
My gait is no faultfinder's or rejecter's gait,
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
 
Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?
 
Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be worked over and rectified?
 
I step up to say that what we do is right and what we affirm is right . . . . and some is only the ore of right,
Witnesses of us . . . . one side a balance and the antipodal side a balance,
Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine,
Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start.
 
This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,
There is no better than it and now.
 
What behaved well in the past or behaves well today is not such a wonder,
The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel.