Poem: Walt Whitman, On the Beach at Night Alone

For the landlocked, the sandbagged, the wordblocked and others. If I don't get to more after the nap now nagging: poetry blogging for the day done, once over easy, but worth the read

On the Beach at Night Alone

by Walt Whitman ~ Leaves of Grass

On the beach at night alone,

As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,

As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,

All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets

All distances of place however wide,

All distances of time, all inanimate forms,

All souls, all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,

All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,

All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,

All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe,

All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,

This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,

And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

Poem a Day is from the Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038. 212-274-0343
academy@poets.org. Other Whitman Poems on Poets.org: A child said, What is the grass?; A Clear Midnight; A noiseless patient spider; A Woman Waits for Me; America