As I ebb'd with the oceans of life

Question 1

anaphora, parallelism. constant movement, searching for purpose. life can often feel the same but seen through a different lens. a search for familiarity. ocean = identity, shore = path of life.

Answer 1

“As I wended the shores I know” + “As I wended the shores I not know”

Question 2

Irony as Whitman is a poet. Nature is how you find your truest self and truest connections. Syncope –> incomplete, being a poet isn’t enough, but connecting to nature whitman is able to reach his truest artistic potential

Answer 2

“but that before all my arrogant poems the real me stands yet untouch’d, untold, unreached”

Question 3

he is now a part of the ocean, the drowned contingent that he feared so much earlier. –> no longer afraid of ‘drowning’ (ups and downs of life), a sense of hope, potential, no longer limiting himself to familiarity.

Answer 3

“(see, from the dead lips of the ooze of exuding at last, see the primastic colours glistening and rolling)”