The Boathouse
IX |
| Flow on, river ! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide ! |
| Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves ! |
| Gorgeous clouds of the sunset ! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me ! |
| Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers ! |
| Stand up, tall masts of Manhattan ! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn ! |
| Throb, baffled and curious brain ! throw out questions and answers ! |
| Suspend here and everwhere, eternal float of solution ! |
| Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly ! |
| Sound out, voices of young men ! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name ! |
| Live, old life ! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress ! |
| Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it ! |
| Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you ; |
| Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current ; |
| Fly on, sea-birds ! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air ; |
| Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you ! |
| Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sun-lit water ! |
| Come on, ships from the lower bay ! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters ! |
| Flaunt away, flags of all nations ! be duly lower’d at sunset ! |
| Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys ! cast black shadows at nightfall ! cast red and |
| yellow light over the tops of the houses ! |
| Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are, |
| You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul, |
| About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas, |
| Thrive, cities - bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers, |
| Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual, |
| Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting. |
| You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers |
| We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate hence-forward, |
| Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us, |
| We use you, and do not cast you aside - we plant you permanently within us, |
| We fathom you not - we love you - there is perfection in you also, |
| You furnish your parts toward eternity, |
| Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," Part IX - Walt Whitman
Photography by Mario Peralta
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