To me the sea is a continual miracle; The fishes that swim - the rocks - the motion of the waves - the ships, with men in them, what stranger miracles are there?
There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.
When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot. My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath will not be obedient to its organs, I become a dumb man.
Now I will do nothing but listen to accrue what I hear into this song. To let sounds contribute toward it. I hear the sound I love. The sound of the human voice. I hear all sounds running together.
Love-buds, put before you and within you, whoever you are, Buds to be unfolded on the old terms; If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will open, and bring form, color, perfume, to you; If you become the aliment and the wet, they will become flowers, fruits, tall blanches and trees.
I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,
The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.
A word of the faith that never balks,
Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.
It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all,
That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all.
I do not doubt but the majest and beauty of the world are latent
in any iota of the world;
I do not doubt there is far more in trivialities, insects,
vulgar persons, slaves, dwarfs, weeds, rejected refuse than
I have supposed.
THIS dust was once the Man, / Gentle, plain, just and resolute—under whose cautious hand, / Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, / Was saved the Union of These States.
My ties and ballasts leave me - I travel - I sail - My elbows rest in the sea-gaps. I skirt the sierras. My palms cover continents - I am afoot with my vision.