Leaves of Grass · Chapter
Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning explained
The chapter captures the final moments of ebb tide and fading daylight, evoking a sense of endings, muffled confessions, and voices from the eddies.
What happens
The chapter captures the final moments of ebb tide and fading daylight, evoking a sense of endings, muffled confessions, and voices from the eddies. It reflects on unnamed poets, lost designs, unrequited love, and despair, culminating in a surrender to oblivion and the relentless ebbing tide.
Themes in this chapter
Death and Immortality
The chapter dwells on the ebb of life, despair, and the call to oblivion, exploring the boundary between death and what lies beyond.
Celebration of Nature and the Universe
The ebbing tide and scented sea-land are central, portraying nature as a force that carries away confessions and voices to the boundless waste.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“Last of ebb, and daylight waning, Scented sea-cool landward making, smells of sedge and salt incoming, With many a half-caught voice sent up from the eddies, Many a muffled confession—many a sob and whisper’d word, As of speakers far or hid.”
The final ebb tide and fading daylight bring cool sea scents and the smell of sedge and salt, carrying faint voices from the swirling waters—muffled confessions, sobs, and whispered words from distant or hidden speakers.
Opens with sensory imagery of the ebb tide and the half-heard voices of the unseen.
“How they sweep down and out! how they mutter! Poets unnamed—artists greatest of any, with cherish’d lost designs, Love’s unresponse—a chorus of age’s complaints—hope’s last words, Some suicide’s despairing cry, Away to the boundless waste, and never again return.”
These voices sweep outward and mutter—unnamed poets and great artists with cherished but lost works, unrequited love, the complaints of old age, final hopes, and a suicide's desperate cry—all carried away to the endless void, never to return.
Lists the varied human sorrows and lost creations swept away by the tide.
“On to oblivion then! On, on, and do your part, ye burying, ebbing tide! On for your time, ye furious debouché!”
Forward into oblivion! Continue, you burying ebbing tide, and fulfill your role! Now is your time, you furious outpouring!
Concludes with an imperative call to the tide to carry everything into oblivion.