‘Sail, sail thy best ship’

 Brooding over the election, I wondered whether anyone else was thinking of these lines: 

Sail, sail thy best ship, ship of Democracy,

Of value is thy freight …

 

That’s Whitman, and he assumes that just about everything good in the world is onboard the ship — not just the present, but also the past — not just the best of the Western world, but of the whole.

 

Earth’s résumé entire floats on they keel O ship …

 

Maybe we could dismiss it as just one more specimen of overwrought American exceptionalism. But I like the metaphor. I hope the crew, a mixed batch from many antecedent nations, minds the ship.

 

Steer then with good strong hand and wary eye O helmsman,

Thou carriest great companions …

• Source: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass; New York: New American Library, 1958, p. 352. These lines are in Section 4 of “Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood.”