Flotsam and jetsam

"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." From "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life," Walt Whitman