Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight,
advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and
wavering,
(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the
last),
the field the world,

For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal
Soul,
Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,
I above all promote brave soldiers.

IN CABIN'D SHIPS AT SEA

IN cabin'd ships at sea,
The boundless blue on every side expanding,
With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large
imperious waves,
Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,

Where joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails,
She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of
day, or under many a star at night,
By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of
the land, be read,
In full rapport at last.

Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts,
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by
them be said,
The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck
beneath
our feet,
We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless
motion,
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast
suggestions
of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the
melancholy
rhythm,
The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all
here,
And this is ocean's poem.

Then falter not, O book, fulfil your destiny,
You not a reminiscence of the land alone,
You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know
not whither, yet ever full of faith,
Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!
Bear forth to them folded my love (dear marines, for you I
fold it here in every leaf);
Speed on my book! spread your white sails, my little bark,
athwart the imperious waves,

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