little wash'd up drift

as i wend to the shores i know not,
as i list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd,
as i inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
as the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
i, too, but signify, at the utmost, a little wash'd-up drift,
a few sands and dead leaves to gather,
gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.

walt whitman  excerpted from "elemental drifts"