| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXIV. Bitter Sorrow
Tears | | By Walt Whitman (1819–1892) |
| | | 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: | 5 |
| —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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