OR, from that Sea of Time,
 Spray, blown by the wind--a double winrow-drift of weeds and shells;
 (O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless!
 Yet will you not, to the tympans of temples held,
 Murmurs and echoes still bring up--Eternity's music, faint and far,
 Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim--strains for the Soul of the
 Prairies,
 Whisper'd reverberations--chords for the ear of the West, joyously
 sounding
 Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable;)
 Infinitessimals out of my life, and many a life,
 (For not my life and years alone I give--all, all I give;) 10
 These thoughts and Songs--waifs from the deep--here, cast high and
 dry,
 Wash'd on America's shores.


 Currents of starting a Continent new,
 Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,
 Fusion of ocean and land--tender and pensive waves,
 (Not safe and peaceful only--waves rous'd and ominous too.
 Out of the depths, the storm's abysms--Who knows whence? Death's
 waves,
 Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd sail.)