184. Thought. Whitman, Walt. 1900. Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

184. Thought

AS I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while the music is playing,
To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral, in mist, of a wreck at sea;
Of certain ships—how they sail from port with flying streamers, and wafted kisses—and that is the last of them!
Of the solemn and murky mystery about the fate of the President;
Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations, founder’d off the Northeast coast, and going down—Of the steamship Arctic going down,	5
Of the veil’d tableau—Women gather’d together on deck, pale, heroic, waiting the moment that draws so close—O the moment!
A huge sob—A few bubbles—the white foam spirting up—And then the women gone,
Sinking there, while the passionless wet flows on—And I now pondering, Are those women indeed gone?
Are Souls drown’d and destroy’d so?
Is only matter triumphant?	10