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Distributed for University Press of New England

The Sea Is a Continual Miracle

Sea Poems and Other Writings by Walt Whitman

From his earliest days on Long Island and in New York City to his last years in Camden, New Jersey, Walt Whitman lived close to the sea he knew and loved. The “liquid-flowing syllables” of Whitman’s poetry and prose tell specific stories of particular voyages and known shores, as well as vivid flights of imagination and keening paeans to wild winds, dark water, stormy and quiet airs. The land, for Whitman, is both immutable and still, while the sea is a realm of dynamic change, mercurial temper, and the ebb and flow of cosmic uncertainty. From “Mannahatta” to “Poem of Joys” to the magisterial ode to the slain President Lincoln, “O Captain! My Captain!” Whitman wove the strands of nautical lexicon and powerful imagery into the tapestry of our national literature. In The Sea Is a Continual Miracle, poet and editor Jeffrey Yang has compiled an invaluable resource for readers, students, and scholars of Whitman, and demonstrates how seeing him through sea glass shows America’s best-loved poet in a new light.

288 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2017

Poetry


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Table of Contents

Preface: Seafaring America • Introduction: Apologia for the Sea • A Note on the Text • The Ocean (1842) • The Mississippi at Midnight (1848) • FROM LEAVES OF GRASS (1855) • FROM LEAVES OF GRASS (1856) • 3. from Poem of Salutation • 11. Sun-Down Poem • 24. Poem of Perfect Miracles • 28. Bunch Poem • 31. Poem of The Sayers of The Words of The Earth • FROM LEAVES OF GRASS (1860–61) • from Proto-Leaf • from Chants Democratic and Native American • Apostroph • from Leaves of Grass • 4. “Something startles me” • Poem of Joys • A Word Out of the Sea • from Enfans d’Adam • 7. “You and I—what the earth is, we are” • 10. “Inquiring, tireless, seeking that yet unfound” • from Calamus • 3. “Whoever you are holding me now in hand” • 4. “These I, singing in spring, collect for lovers” • 11. “When I heard at the close of the day” • 13. “Calamus taste” • 14. “Not heat flames up and consumes” • 19. “Mind you the timid models of the rest” • 26. “We two boys together clinging” • 31. “What ship, puzzled at sea” • 32. “What think you I take my pen in hand to record?” • 37. “A leaf for hand in hand!” • Longings for Home • from Messenger Leaves • To Old Age • Mannahatta • FROM DRUM-TAPS (1865) AND SEQUEL TO DRUM-TAPS: WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOOR-YARD BLOOM’D AND OTHER POEMS (1865–66) • Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps • City of Ships • The Torch • The Ship • Out of the Rolling Ocean, the Crowd • World, Take Good Notice • from When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d • O Captain! My Captain! • FROM LEAVES OF GRASS (1867) • from Starting from Paumanok • from Children of Adam • From Pent-Up Aching Rivers • Facing West from California’s Shores • from Song of the Open Road • Respondez! • As If a Phantom Caress’d Me • from Songs Before Parting • from As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario’s Shores • Song At Sunset • FROM LEAVES OF GRASS (1871–72), PASSAGE TO INDIA (1871), AND AS A STRONG BIRD ON PINIONS FREE (1872) • from Inscriptions • In Cabin’d Ships at Sea • from Songs of Insurrection • France, the 18th Year of These States • from Passage to India • Passage to India • from Whispers of Heavenly Death • Whispers of Heavenly Death • from Leaves of Grass • Warble for Lilac-Time • from Now Finale to the Shore • Now Finale to the Shore • The Untold Want • Joy, Shipmate, Joy! • from As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free • As a Strong Bird with Pinions Free • O Star of France! • By Broad Potomac’s Shore • FROM LEAVES OF GRASS (1876) AND TWO RIVULETS (1876) • The Beauty of the Ship • from Two Rivulets • Two Rivulets • Or from That Sea of Time • Eidólons • Spain, 1873–74 • Prayer of Columbus • FROM LEAVES OF GRASS (1881–82) • Sea-Drift • Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking • As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life • Tears • To the Man-of-War Bird • Aboard at a Ship’s Helm • On the Beach at Night • The World Below the Brine • On the Beach at Night Alone • Song for All Seas, All Ships • Patroling Barnegat • After the Sea-Ship • from Autumn Rivulets • As Consequent, Etc. • FROM SPECIMEN DAYS & COLLECT (1882–83) • Paumanok, and My Life on It as Child and Young Man • My Passion for Ferries • An Interregnum Paragraph • To the Spring and the Brook • A July Afternoon by the Pond • from Autumn Side-Bits • A Winter Day on the Sea-Beach • Sea-Shore Fancies • A Two-Hours’ Ice-Sail • An Afternoon Scene • A Sun-Bath—Nakedness • A Jaunt Up the Hudson • Manhattan from the Bay • A Night Remembrance • Delaware River—Days and Nights • Scenes on Ferry and River—Last Winter’s Nights • Up the Hudson to Ulster County • An Ulster County Waterfall • Hudson River Sights • Swallows on the River • Departing of the Big Steamers • New Senses—New Joys • Unfulfilled Wants—the Arkansas River • Earth’s Most Important Stream • Nights on the Mississippi • A Hint of Wild Nature • Seeing Niagara to Advantage • The St. Lawrence Line • The Savage Saguenay • Chicoutimi and Ha-Ha Bay • My Native Sand and Salt Once More • An Ossianic Night—Dearest Friends • Only a New Ferry Boat • The Great Unrest of Which We Are a Part • FROM LEAVES OF GRASS (1891–92) • from First Annex: Sands at Seventy • Paumanok • From Montauk Point • A Font of Type • Fancies at Navesink • (The Pilot in the Mist—Had I the Choice—You Tides with Ceaseless Swell—Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning—And Yet Not You Alone—Proudly the Flood Comes In—By That Long Scan of Waves—Then Last of All.) • With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea! • Of That Blithe Throat of Thine • Yonnondio • The Voice of the Rain • Twenty Years • The Dismantled Ship • from Second Annex: Good-Bye My Fancy • Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht! • Lingering Last Drops • An Ended Day • Old Age’s Ship & Crafty Death’s • Shakspere-Bacon’s Cipher • To the Sun-set Breeze • A Twilight Song • A Voice from Death • A Persian Lesson • Grand Is the Seen • from A Backward Glance O’er Travel’d Roads • “There is a river . . .” (Date unknown) • Notes • Index of Titles and First Lines

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