From
Leaves of Grass, by
Walt Whitman:
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.