by Whitman · Cluster: Identity · Free Verse · Eternal Return
Abstract
A nocturnal shore lyric of grief: a ghostly figure weeping unloosed tears like a storm at night; free-verse on grief, the sea, night and hidden sorrow.
Connections
Motifs: Night, Storm, Sea Themes & Concepts: Grief and Loss, Melancholy Forms & Genres: Free Verse, Lyric
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: SEA-DRIFT
Tears! tears! tears!
In the night, in solitude, tears,
On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck’d in by the sand,
Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate,
Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head;
O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears?
What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch’d there on the sand?
Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries;
O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the beach!
O wild and dismal night storm, with wind—O belching and desperate!
O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and
regulated pace,
But away at night as you fly, none looking—O then the unloosen’d ocean,
Of tears! tears! tears!