Walt Whitman

Tears

Tears! tears! tears!
  In the night, in solitude, tears;
  On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck’d in by the sand;
  Tears—not a star shining—all dark and desolate;
  Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head:
 —O who is that ghost?—that form in the dark, with tears?
  What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch’d there on the sand?
  Streaming tears—sobbing tears—throes, choked with wild cries;
  O storm, embodied, rising, careering, with swift steps along the
        beach;
  O wild and dismal night storm, with wind! O belching and
        desperate!                                                   10
  O shade, so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and
        regulated pace;
  But away, at night, as you fly, none looking—O then the unloosen’d
        ocean,
  Of tears! tears! tears!
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