Leaves of Grass

  Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new-comer chatting:
  He shipp’d as green-hand boy, and sail’d away, (took some sudden,
      vehement notion;)
  Since, twenty years and more have circled round and round,
  While he the globe was circling round and round, —and now returns:
  How changed the place—all the old land-marks gone—the parents dead;
  (Yes, he comes back to lay in port for good—to settle—has a
      well-fill’d purse—no spot will do but this;)
  The little boat that scull’d him from the sloop, now held in leash I see,
  I hear the slapping waves, the restless keel, the rocking in the sand,
  I see the sailor kit, the canvas bag, the great box bound with brass,
  I scan the face all berry-brown and bearded—the stout-strong frame,
  Dress’d in its russet suit of good Scotch cloth:
  (Then what the told-out story of those twenty years? What of the future?)