By that long scan of waves, myself call’d back, resumed upon myself, In every crest some undulating light or shade⁠—some retrospect, Joys, travels, studies, silent panoramas⁠—scenes ephemeral, The long past war, the battles, hospital sights, the wounded and the dead, Myself through every by-gone phase⁠—my idle youth⁠—old age at hand, My three-score years of life summ’d up, and more, and past, By any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing, And haply yet some drop within God’s scheme’s ensemble⁠—some wave, or part of wave, Like one of yours, ye multitudinous ocean.

Then last of all, caught from these shores, this hill, Of you O tides, the mystic human meaning: Only by law of you, your swell and ebb, enclosing me the same, The brain that shapes, the voice that chants this song.