Poetry Manuscripts

[Leaf 1 recto]

Proudly the flood comes in,

shouting, foaming, advancing

Long it ?holds at the high, with

bosom broad outswelling;

All that throbs, dilates—the farms

woods, the streets of cities,

the _^ —the workmen at their work.

Mainsails, and topsails, and jibs,

appear in the offing—steamers

with pennants of smoke—

and under the noonday forenoon sun

Where my gaze as now sweeps ocean river and bay

?Freighted with human lives, gaily

the outward bound, gaily the

inward bound

Where my gaze as now sweeps ocean river and bay

Flaunting from many a spar

the flag I love.

Where my gaze Where my gaze _^ as now sweeps ocean sweeps ocean

river and bay.

Editorial note: A draft of "Proudly the Flood Comes In" first published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in Nineteenth Century in August 1885.; The verso of this manuscript is an advertisement with the table of contents for Whitman's book Drum Taps. The contents listed include some poetry titles that Whitman never included in Drum Taps or any of the editions of Leaves of Grass.

Location: 3 [Proudly the flood comes in] Item 10 | Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The Walt Whitman Archive