A Word out of the Sea by Walt Whitman — Read

1. Out of the rocked cradle, / Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, / Out of the Ninth-month midnight, / Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his / bed, wandered alone, bareheaded, barefoot, / Down from the showered halo, / Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting; as if they were alive, / Out from the patches of briars and blackberries, / From the memories of the birds that chanted to me, / From your memories, sad brother -- from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, / From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears, / From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist, / From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, / From the myriad thence-aroused words, / From the word stronger and more delicious than any, -- / From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting, / As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, / Borne hither -- ere all eludes me, hurriedly, -- / A man -- yet by these tears a little boy again, / Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, / I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, / Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them, / A reminiscence sing.

2. Once, Paumanok, / When the snows had melted, and the Fifth-month grass was growing, / Up this sea-shore, in some briars, / Two guests from Alabama -- two together, / And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown; / And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand, / And every day the she-bird, crouched on her nest, silent, with bright eyes; / And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, / Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.