Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Patroling Barnegat
1Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running,
2Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,
3Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,
4Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,
5Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
6On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,
7Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,
8Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,
9(That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?)
10Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,
11Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,
12Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,
13A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,
14That savage trinity warily watching.
Notes
1] Barnegat Bay is on the coast of Ocean County, New Jersey.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1891-92): 208-09. PS 3201 1891 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
June
1880
Publication date note: American (June 1880)
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/2/27
Composition date:
1880
Form: sonnet
Form note: (all lines rhyming alike)
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