by Whitman · Cluster: Ghosts · Ghost · Death and Love

Abstract

Brief shore lyric in which a loved phantom that caressed the speaker vanishes in glimmering light, leaving only hateful mocking presences.

Connections

Motifs: Ghosts, Sea, Supernatural Themes & Concepts: Grief and Loss, Romantic Love

Testo integrale / Full text

Cluster: WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH

As if a phantom caress’d me, I thought I was not alone walking here by the shore; But the one I thought was with me as now I walk by the shore, the one I loved that caress’d me, As I lean and look through the glimmering light, that one has utterly disappear’d. And those appear that are hateful to me and mock me.