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Walt Whitman - As Consequent, Etc.
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AS consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
Or many a herb-lined brook`s reticulation`s,
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,
Songs of continued years I sing.

Life`s ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,
With the old streams of death.)

Some threading Ohio`s farm-fields or the woods,
Some down Colorado`s cañons from sources of perpetual snow,
Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,               


Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,
Some to Atlantica`s bays, and so to the great salt brine.

In you whoe`er you are my book perusing,
In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,
All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.

Currents for starting a continent new,
Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,
Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves,
(Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous`d and ominous too,
Out of the depths the storm`s abysmic waves, who knows whence?     


Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter`d sail.)

Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,
A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.

O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless,
Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity`s music faint and far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica`s rim, strains for the soul of the
         prairies,
Whisper`d reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously
         sounding,
Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable,
Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,                    


(For not my life and years alone I give—all, all I give,)
These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry,
Wash`d on America`s shores?
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