As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life Identity Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #1

Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems, (7)

The speaker has a sense, here, of why he writes poems. It's pride in the electricity that flows through him. The speaker has a certain kind of energy that allows him to write, and it's this pride that "holds" him and allows him to experience the world the way he does.

Quote #2

I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift, (22)

The speaker starts to identify with the trash on the beach and the things brought in by the drifting tide. He's just a by-product of the oceans of life; whatever created him is part of something larger, he says, and he knows that he's just a small piece of the whole. Or perhaps he just thinks that he isn't worth much. Either way, he identifies pretty strongly with the trash on the beach.

Quote #3

Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, (27)

Realizing you have no idea who you really are is really no fun. All the things he has ever said revisit him now, and they seem as silly as "blab." They "recoil" against him like waves, too, adding to the unpleasantness. It's safe to say that he's deep in an existential crisis.