FANCIES AT NAVESINK

(The original manuscript of this unpublished poem by Walt Whitman, was sold in New York recently. Apparently it was never finished; which is to be regretted, as its few lines are in Whitman’s best manner. The scene is on the hill by the twin lighthouses at Navesink, N. J., near the entrance to New York harbor.—Ed.)

FANCIES AT NAVESINK—THE PILOT IN THE MIST

(Steaming the Northern Rapids—an old St. Lawrence Reminiscence.)

A sudden memory-flash comes back, I know not why,

Here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from the hill.

Again ’tis at morning—a heavy haze contends with daybreak.

Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me—we press through foam-dash’d rocks that almost touch.

Again I, turning, mark where aft the small, thin Indian helmsman

Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand—