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larryhammerFor Poetry Monday, a somewhat *cough* different view of undersea life than last week's poem:
The World Below the Brine, Walt Whitman
The world below the brine, Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom, The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do, The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere, The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.
The audacity of a single long sentence fragment, the views shifting like swaying seaweed, the change at the end looking outward and elsewhere. I realize the conclusion is probably aiming for something spiritual, but it's easy to read it as science-fictional. I suspect that the time of writing, just before the Civil War, affected the poem's mood.
---L.
Subject quote from “The Sea-Fairies,” Alfred the Tennyson.
The World Below the Brine, Walt Whitman
The world below the brine, Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom, The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do, The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere, The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.
The audacity of a single long sentence fragment, the views shifting like swaying seaweed, the change at the end looking outward and elsewhere. I realize the conclusion is probably aiming for something spiritual, but it's easy to read it as science-fictional. I suspect that the time of writing, just before the Civil War, affected the poem's mood.
---L.
Subject quote from “The Sea-Fairies,” Alfred the Tennyson.