After the Sea-Ship

Listen to:

After the Sea-Ship (1:24)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,

  After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,

  Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,

  Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,

  Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,

  Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,

  Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,

  Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,

  Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing,

  The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome

      under the sun,

  A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,

  Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following.