AFTER the Sea-Ship-after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves-liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;
Larger and smaller waves, in the spread of the ocean, yearnfully flowing;
The wake of the Sea-Ship, after she passes-flashing and frolicsome, under the sun,
A motley procession, with many a fleck of foam, and many fragments,
Following the stately and rapid Ship-in the wake following.
(Walt Whitman)
More Poetry from Walt Whitman:
- A Proadway Pageant (Walt Whitman Poems)
- A Boston Ballad, 1854 (Walt Whitman Poems)
- A Woman Waits For Me (Walt Whitman Poems)
- A March In The Ranks, Hard-prest (Walt Whitman Poems)
- A Riddle Song (Walt Whitman Poems)
- A child said, What is the grass? (Walt Whitman Poems)