THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE 199 



I believe yon refuse to go back without feeling of me ; 



We must have a turn together — I undress — hurry me out of 



sight of the land; 

 Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse ; 

 Dash me with amorous wet — I can repay you. 



" Sea of stretch'd ground-swells ! 

 Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths ! 

 Sea of the brine of life! sea of unshovel'd yet always ready 



graves ! 

 Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! 

 I am integral with you — I too am of one phase, and of all 



phases." 



This other passage would afford many a text for 

 the moralists and essayists : — 



"Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, schol- 

 arship, and the like ; 

 To me, all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from 



them, except as it results to their Bodies and Souls, 

 So that often, to me, they appear gaunt and naked, 

 And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself 



or herself. 

 And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, is full of 



the rotten excrement of maggots ; 

 And often, to me, those men and women pass unwittingly the 



true realities of life, and go toward false reaUties, 

 And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has served 



them, but nothing more, 

 And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked somnambules, 



walking the dusk." 



Ah, Time, you enchantress ! what tricks you play 

 with us ! The old is already proved, — the past and 

 the distant hold nothing hut the beautiful. 



Or let us take another view. Suppose Walt 

 Whitman had never existed, and some bold essayist, 

 like Mr. Higginson or Matthew Arnold, had projected 

 him in abstract, outlined him on a scholarly ideal 

 background, formulated and put in harmless critical 



