Walt Whitman

by Mr. Ankeny

January 10, 2011

On The Beach at Night Alone
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 Thoughts.

✤ “As the old mother sways her to and

fro singing her husky song,” is
comparing the waves crashing on the
shore to a mother, swinging her baby.
The ocean is the mother, the waves are
the baby.

✤ “I think a thought of the clef of the

universes and of the future.” He’s
thinking about how the world is
interrelated. At the edge of a great dark
ocean, he thinks of the great darkness
of the universe and the blank future.
Poem thoughts continued...

✤ “A vast similitude interlocks all,” could be reworded: “A large

similarity unites everything.” Again, he’s pondering how we’re all
connected, we’re all similar and locked to each other (interlocked).

✤ The next 8 lines start with “All...” This is an example of repetition,

and he’s using the repetition to show how different things are
connected, from “the fishes” to “colors” to “lives and deaths.”

✤ Finally, he ends with them held “compactly” in our universe. We end

with the thought that we’re not only connected, but intricately linked,
close together, like a mother holding her child close to her (line 2).
About Walt Whitman...
Walt’s Life

✤ Born: May 31, 1819; Died: March 26, 1892

✤ Lived primarily in NYC, parents moved to Brooklyn when he was 4.

✤ Liked to hang out in Pfaff's Beer Hall, where you had to walk down
awkward stairs into the basement, where he would stay late in the
night in the underground bar.

✤ He worked as a journalist in Brooklyn and “roamed the streets on

foot, carrying around a polished cane, people-watching, and seeking
out story ideas.”
Walt’s Life (continued)

✤ Whitman struggled to support himself through most of his life.

✤ He founded a weekly newspaper the Long-Islander, a “free-soil” paper

called the Brooklyn Freeman and he published poetry.

✤ His most famous work is Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855. It was
a groundbreaking work of modern poetry and included the iconic
“Song of Myself.”
From “Song of Myself”

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end;
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,

Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Sources:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/126
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/05/31