The Full Text of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
1
1Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
2Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.
3Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
4On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
5And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.
2
6The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,
7The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,
8The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
9The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the river,
10The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,
11The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,
12The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.
13Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,
14Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
15Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
16Others will see the islands large and small;
17Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,
18A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
19Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
3
20It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
21I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
22Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
23Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
24Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d,
25Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried,
26Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.
27I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,
28Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
29Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow,
30Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south,
31Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
32Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
33Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water,
34Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
35Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
36Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,
37Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
38Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,
39The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,
40The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,
41The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,
42The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,
43The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
44The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening,
45The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks,
46On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
47On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night,
48Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.
4
49These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
50I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
51The men and women I saw were all near to me,
52Others the same—others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them,
53(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)
5
54What is it then between us?
55What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
56Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
57I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
58I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
59I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
60In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
61In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
62I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
63I too had receiv’d identity by my body,
64That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body.
6
65It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
66The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
67The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,
68My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
69Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
70I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
71I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
72Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,
73Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
74Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
75The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
76The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,
77Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting,
78Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
79Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
80Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
81Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word,
82Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,
83Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
84The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
85Or as small as we like, or both great and small.
7
86Closer yet I approach you,
87What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance,
88I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.
89Who was to know what should come home to me?
90Who knows but I am enjoying this?
91Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?
8
92Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm’d Manhattan?
93River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide?
94The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter?
95What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach?
96What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face?
97Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?
98We understand then do we not?
99What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
100What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not?
9
101Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
102Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
103Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me!
104Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
105Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
106Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
107Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
108Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!
109Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
110Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
111Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it!
112Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
113Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current;
114Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
115Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
116Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sunlit water!
117Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters!
118Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!
119Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!
120Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
121You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,
122About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung out divinest aromas,
123Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers,
124Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
125Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.
126You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,
127We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward,
128Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,
129We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us,
130We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,
131You furnish your parts toward eternity,
132Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
The Full Text of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
1
1Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
2Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.
3Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
4On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
5And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.
2
6The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,
7The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,
8The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
9The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the river,
10The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,
11The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,
12The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.
13Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,
14Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
15Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
16Others will see the islands large and small;
17Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,
18A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
19Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
3
20It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
21I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
22Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
23Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
24Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d,
25Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried,
26Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.
27I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,
28Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
29Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow,
30Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south,
31Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
32Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
33Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water,
34Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
35Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
36Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,
37Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
38Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,
39The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,
40The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,
41The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,
42The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,
43The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
44The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening,
45The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks,
46On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
47On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night,
48Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.
4
49These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
50I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
51The men and women I saw were all near to me,
52Others the same—others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them,
53(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)
5
54What is it then between us?
55What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
56Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
57I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
58I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
59I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
60In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
61In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
62I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
63I too had receiv’d identity by my body,
64That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body.
6
65It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
66The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
67The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,
68My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
69Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
70I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
71I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
72Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,
73Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
74Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
75The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
76The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,
77Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting,
78Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
79Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
80Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
81Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word,
82Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,
83Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
84The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
85Or as small as we like, or both great and small.
7
86Closer yet I approach you,
87What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance,
88I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.
89Who was to know what should come home to me?
90Who knows but I am enjoying this?
91Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?
8
92Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm’d Manhattan?
93River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide?
94The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter?
95What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach?
96What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face?
97Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?
98We understand then do we not?
99What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
100What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not?
9
101Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
102Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
103Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me!
104Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
105Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
106Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
107Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
108Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!
109Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
110Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
111Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it!
112Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
113Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current;
114Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
115Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
116Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sunlit water!
117Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters!
118Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!
119Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!
120Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
121You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,
122About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung out divinest aromas,
123Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers,
124Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
125Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.
126You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,
127We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward,
128Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,
129We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us,
130We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,
131You furnish your parts toward eternity,
132Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
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“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Introduction
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"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is Walt Whitman's reflection on the glory of the shared human experience. While crossing New York's East River, the poem's speaker is struck by the realization that the people of the past, present, and future are all deeply connected: one day, long after the speaker's gone, other people will stand just where he's standing, with the same thoughts and feelings he's having right now. Because all of humanity shares in existence and experience, this speaker joyfully concludes, no one is ever really alone. This poem first appeared in the 1856 second edition of Whitman's masterpiece, Leaves of Grass.
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“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Summary
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1
Rising tide beneath me! I see you clearly, as if you were another person standing right in front of me. Clouds toward the west, where the sun is half an hour from setting—I see you as if you were a person standing right in front of me, too.
Groups of people wearing your usual clothes—how strange and interesting you look to me! The thousands of people who cross the river on the ferry, heading home, are more strange and interesting to me than you'd think. And the people who will make this same journey years and years from now mean more to me, and are more on my mind, than you might think.
2
The imperceptible way that everything, all the time, sustains me; the elegant construction of existence, and the way that we all fade away into existence but are still part of it. The way the past, the future, and the present are all alike; the sense of shining beauty I get from the very littlest things I see and hear as I walk through the streets and cross the river; the quick-flowing water carrying me far away; all the people who will come after me, the connections between me and them; the plain fact of all the people around me—their lives, and the way we love, see, and hear each other.
Other people will get on the ferry and cross the river. Other people will watch the high tide coming in. Other people will see the bustling ships around Manhattan to the north and the west, and the hilly terrain of Brooklyn to the south and east. Other people will see the big and little islands. Fifty years from now, other people will see all these things as they cross the river, just half an hour before sunset; a hundred years from now, or many hundreds of years from now, other people will see these same things, enjoying the sunset, the rising tide, and the falling tide.
3
Neither time nor place makes any difference—and distance doesn't make any difference either. I'm right here with you, people of one or many generations from now. The way you feel when you look at the river and the sky, is just how I felt when I looked at them; just like you, I was a member of a crowd; just like you feel restored by the beauty of the flowing river, I felt restored; just like you stand still, leaning over the rail of the boat, but still move fast as the boat moves, I stood still and moved fast; just like you look at the countless boats in the harbor, I looked at the boats.
I also crossed the river many times, back in the day. I watched the December seagulls hovering in the air, shimmying in the wind; I saw the sunlight striking them so that they glowed on one side and were deeply shadowed on the other; I watched them traveling in big circles, slowly moving south; I saw the summer sky reflected in the river; I was almost blinded by the reflection of the sun; I looked at the sunlight making a halo around my reflection in the water; I looked at the misty hills to the south and southwest, and at the purple-tinted, woolly clouds coming in; I looked at the entrance of the bay to see boats coming in; I saw the boats coming nearer, and saw the people aboard nearby boats; I saw the sails of sailing boats, and the anchored ships; I saw the sailors climbing in the rigging or straddling the masts; I saw the masts, the boats' bodies, and the flags; I saw the steamboats with their captains steering from their cabins; I saw the white trail those boats left in the water, and their paddle-wheels vibrating as they turned; I saw flags from all over the world being lowered at sunset; I saw the lacy waves in the falling night, their curves, their playful foam and their shining; I saw things getting fainter in the distance, and the stone walls of the warehouses beside the docks; I saw a darkening group of boats, a tugboat between barges, hayboats, and the late cargo boat; I saw the fires from the metal-casting factories blazing in the night, sending flashes of black, red, and yellow light over the roofs and into the streets.
4
All these things—and everything else—touched me in the same way they touch you, people of the future. I loved Brooklyn and Manhattan, and the grand, swift-flowing river. I felt close to all the people I saw, and to the people of the future who I knew would be thinking back to me, just as I thought forward to them. (Because one day I'll be gone, even though I'm here for now.)
5
What separates us, then? What does it matter that there are twenties or hundreds of years separating me from the people of the future?
Whatever separates us, it doesn't matter; neither distance nor place matters. I also was alive; hilly Brooklyn was my town; I also walked through the streets of Manhattan, and went swimming in the rivers around it. I also felt sudden questions moving inside me. Sometimes, walking through a crowd, I'd feel those questions—and sometimes I'd feel them walking home late at night, or while I was lying in bed. I also have been struck with sudden insights from my place floating in the eternal suspension of existence; I also have been who I am because I have the body I have; I knew that what I was, was because of my body, and what I would be, I would be because of my body.
6
You're not alone in going through dark times. I went through dark times, too. The very best work I'd done seemed empty and questionable; and weren't my grand ideas really pathetic? And you're not alone in being bad sometimes. I'm a person who knew what it was like to behave badly. I also got myself into the same old messes of stubborn behavior; I talked too much, was embarrassed, was full of resentment, lied, thieved, held grudges; I was cunning, angry, lustful, and wanted things I was ashamed to talk about; I was unmanageable, arrogant, greedy, shallow, tricky, cowardly, cruel; I behaved like a wild wolf, a snake, or a pig; I didn't lack dishonest looks, empty words, or the desire to cheat on people; I often resisted, hated, procrastinated, was cheap, and was lazy; I was just like anyone else, in the way they spent their time and in what happened to them. Young men called for me by my first name as I went past; I felt their arms around my neck while I stood next to them, or felt them carelessly leaning against me when we sat next to each other; I saw plenty of people I loved in the street or on the ferry or at gathering places, but never told them I loved them; I lived the same life as everyone else, laughing, messily eating, sleeping; I played my own self-conscious part in the human drama, the same role everyone plays, that can be as grand as we like or as little as we like, or grand and little at once.
7
I'm getting even closer to you now. I thought of you just as much as you're thinking of me now—I thought of you well ahead of time. I thought long and hard about you before you were even born.
And who knew that I'd get what I'm getting out of such thoughts? Who'd have thought I'd be enjoying these thoughts so much? Who knows whether, no matter the distance in space and time, I might as well be looking at you now, even though you can't see me?
8
Oh, what could possibly be more grand and pleasing to me than Manhattan, all surrounded by the masts of boats? The river, the sunset, and the cresting waves of the high tide? The seagulls moving their bodies, the hay-boat in the darkening evening, and the late cargo boat? What gods could be more powerful than the ones I feel holding my hand, calling me by my name in their beloved voices as I come closer? What's more delicate and mysterious than the thing that connects me to the person who looks me in the eye? The thing that melds you and me right now, and fills you with the meaning of my words?
We get it, then, don't we? What I wordlessly assured you was true, don't you believe in it? What you can't learn from studying—what you can't learn in a sermon, we've nevertheless understood, haven't we?
9
Keep on flowing, river! Swell up at high tide, and sink down at low tide! Keep dancing playfully along, lacy-edged waves! Beautiful sunset clouds! Soak me in your glory, and soak the people who come generations after me! Cross from one side of the river to the other, numberless travelers! Stand up, masts of the boats around Manhattan! Stand up, lovely hills of Brooklyn! Pulse, perplexed and questioning brain! Generate some questions and answers! Float here and everywhere else, eternal fluid of existence! Stare, affectionate and desiring eyes, in the house, the street, and the gathering-place! Ring out, voices of young men! Call me loudly by my first name! Keep on living, life! Play the self-conscious role that lets people know they're acting! Play the role that's as grand or as little as one chooses to make it! Think, you readers, whether I might just be looking back at you. Stand firmly, ferryboat railing, to hold up the people who casually lean on you—but speed along at the river's pace. Keep flying, seagulls! Fly sideways or in wide circles, high up in the air. Reflect the summer sky, river water, and hold it there until everyone who looks down can appreciate it! Shoot out, crown of light, from around my head, or anyone else's head, in the reflections in the water! Come along, ships from further down the bay! Go up or down the river, sailboats and barges! Show yourselves off, flags from around the world, and be ceremonially lowered at sunset! Shoot your flames high, metal-factory chimneys! Cast dark shadows in the night! Throw red and yellow light over the rooftops! You, the appearances of things, now or from now on, reveal what you are: you needed skin on things, keep on wrapping up my soul. May glorious smells hang around my body, and your body. Flourish, cities: bring on your goods, your displays, your generous and just-right rivers. Grow, existence that is perhaps the most sacred thing of all; stay right where you are, objects more immortal than any others.
You're always waiting, you silent, lovely caretakers. We finally accept you with our senses, and from then on can never get enough. You won't be able to outwit us or evade us any longer. We use you, but don't discard you: we make sure you take root inside us. We don't understand you—we love you—you're perfect, too; you offer yourself up to the eternal; grand or little, you offer yourself up to the collective soul.
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“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Themes
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The Connection of the Shared Human Experience
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” is Walt Whitman’s poem of human connection across the borders of space and time. On his way across New York’s East River on a ferry, the poem’s speaker feels linked not just to the people who are making this journey with him in the present, but also to all the people who have made this journey before him—and to all the people who will make this journey long after he’s gone.
This notion—that people throughout human history seen and felt, or will see and feel, the same things that the speaker is seeing and feeling right now—makes the speaker feel deeply connected to all humanity. And because everyone who has ever lived or will ever live takes part in the shared experience that is existence itself, the speaker suggests, no one is ever really alone. In other words, humanity is united by the mere experience of being human.
The sight of New York and all its people makes this vast human unity feel immediate to the speaker. While the city itself may evolve over time, the people who will live in the New York of the future will still have essentially the same thoughts and feelings that the speaker does. They'll admire the beauty of the city and enjoying the company of their loved ones, just like he does.
In thinking about the people who will make this same journey (and share the same emotional experiences) in the future, the speaker gets the sense he’s actually “with [them].” The speaker feels that he and everyone around him are “part of the scheme,” taking part in the ongoing flow of existence, which is as continuous as the river beneath him. For that reason, the separations of “distance” and “place” are only illusions and don’t really matter: every person, everywhere, is united in the “river” of being—that is, merely by existing in the first place.
Since the people of the past, present, and future are thus all connected, everyone can take comfort in the fact that—no matter how lonely they feel—they’re never really alone. Reaching out directly to his future readers, the speaker assures them that they don’t suffer “the dark patches” of life by themselves: they have the company of everyone who has ever lived, and who will ever live. In fact, at exactly the same moment that readers of the future read the words of this poem, he suggests, he’s “as good as looking at [them] now”—and it’s only outward “appearances” that make anyone think otherwise.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
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Lines 1-2
Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face."Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" begins with a cry of surprise and delight:
Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
The speaker, readers gather, must be standing on the Brooklyn ferry itself, a boat that takes people across the East River, back and forth between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Below him, he sees a "flood-tide"—that is, high tide on the river—and personifies it, greeting it like a friend, "face to face."
This moment suggests that the speaker is recognizing the river, seeing it fresh, noticing its character as if for the first time. The same thing happens between him and the sky a moment later: the "clouds" and the setting "sun" also appear to him "face to face." It's as if he's having a sudden, powerful encounter with the world around him. And his exuberant exclamation points in the first line suggest that this encounter might be both beautiful and startling.
In other words, on his everyday journey across the river, this speaker seems to have had an epiphany—a sudden new insight into the nature of the world. And that epiphany will have a lot to do both with seeing the world "face to face," and with seeing other people face to face—even if those people don't, strictly speaking, exist yet. This poem will trace the speaker's joyful realization that he's connected to everyone who ever was or ever will be, across space and time.
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Lines 3-5
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. -
Lines 6-12
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,
The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the river,
The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,
The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others. -
Lines 13-19
Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide. -
Lines 20-26
It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d. -
Lines 27-33
I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,
Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow,
Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south,
Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water, -
Lines 34-48
Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,
The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,
The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening,
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks,
On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets. -
Lines 49-53
These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
The men and women I saw were all near to me,
Others the same—others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them,
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.) -
Lines 54-64
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had receiv’d identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body. -
Lines 65-77
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting, -
Lines 78-85
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word,
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,
Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small. -
Lines 86-91
Closer yet I approach you,
What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance,
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.
Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me? -
Lines 92-97
Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm’d Manhattan?
River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide?
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter?
What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach?
What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face?
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you? -
Lines 98-100
We understand then do we not?
What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not? -
Lines 101-113
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current; -
Lines 114-119
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sunlit water!
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses! -
Lines 120-125
Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung out divinest aromas,
Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers,
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting. -
Lines 126-132
You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward,
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,
We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us,
We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,
You furnish your parts toward eternity,
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
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“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Symbols
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The River
The river that the speaker crosses is a symbol of the continuous flow of time and existence. A river is something that's both constantly changing and always the same. The water keeps passing through, but the river itself stays where it is. In this speaker's eyes, the exact same thing is true about the whole universe. Time and people pass through the universe like a river's flowing waters, coming and going, but they're all part of one big, unchanging thing: existence itself.
It makes a lot of sense, then, that the speaker should have a revelation about how the people of the past, present, and future are all connected as he crosses a river: feeling himself moved along by its flow, he's also able to imagine all the people before and after him who will be moved along in just the same way.
- See where this symbol appears in the poem.
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“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Apostrophe
There are a couple of important flavors of apostrophe in this poem: apostrophes to the landscape, and apostrophes to the people of the future. Addressing the river and his readers with equal ease, the speaker suggests that people and the world are all somehow together, sharing one big, eternal consciousness.
The entire first section of the poem is an apostrophe and sets the tone for all that follows. First, take a look at the speaker's address to the world around him:
Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.To this speaker, the personified "flood-tide" of the river below, and the "clouds" and "sun" above, are creatures he can address "face to face," people he can greet with exuberant affection. The whole world, in his eyes, is alive. Calling out to the river and the sky this way, the speaker seems at once worshipful and informal: he's meeting the world itself as a friend and an equal, but also as something astonishing, something to be addressed with a degree of formal respect.
When, a moment later, he addresses plain old people, his tone gets a little bit gentler:
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.From greeting the whole world "face to face," the speaker turns now to noticing how "curious" the people around him seem: in other words, they seem almost strange, inspiring his curiosity and fascination. That feels like a more everyday feeling than the sense that one is greeting a river.
But things get more mystical when the speaker starts addressing people who haven't even been born yet—a moment that might give modern-day readers, approaching this poem more than 150 years after it was written, a little jolt.
In this speaker's eyes, there seems to really be no difference between speaking to the world, the people around him, and all the people who will come after him. As he puts it in line 91: "Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?"
Apostrophe is thus at the very heart of the poem's philosophy. To this speaker, everyone that has lived, lives, or will live is within his reach, and so is the whole world: he can speak directly to everybody and everything.
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
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Rhetorical Question
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End-Stopped Line
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Imagery
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Repetition
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Anaphora
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Metaphor
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Parallelism
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Flood-tide
- Costumes
- Curious
- Hence
- Meditations
- Impalpable sustenance
- The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme
- Similitudes
- Avails not
- Twelfth-month
- Oscillating
- Centrifugal spokes of light
- Fleeces
- Tinged
- Schooners and sloops
- Astride the spars
- Hulls
- Serpentine pennants
- Pilot-houses
- Wake
- Tremulous
- Frolicsome crests and glistening
- Foundry
- Clefts
- Stately
- Scores
- Ample
- Bathed
- The float forever held in solution
- Meagre
- Contrariety
- Guile
- Wayward
- Malignant
- Wanting
- Haps
- Nighest name
- Negligent
- Laid in my stores in advance
- Ministers
- Insatiate henceforward
- Fathom
- Furnish
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The rising tide.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
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Form
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is broken into nine sections of all different lengths, each of which looks at the speaker's big ideas about humanity, time, and transcendence from a slightly different angle.
Some of those sections are broken into multiple stanzas (as in section 1) and some are just one continuous stanza themselves.
Whitman liked (and invented!) this form, and used it often—see "I Sing the Body Electric" for another good example. A meandering, unlimited free-verse structure allowed him to explore his grand ideas unhampered by traditional poetic conventions like stanza length, meter, or rhyme. It also allowed him to make a characteristic movement between sweeping passages of description and short, punchy declarations—showing his mind at work as he develops his transcendental philosophy from his experience of everyday life.
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Meter
Like a lot of Whitman's poetry, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is written in free verse. That means it doesn't use a regular meter (or a rhyme scheme, for that matter). Instead, the speaker can use as many syllables as he likes in as irregular a pattern as he likes to communicate his vision.
The lack of a standard meter, however, doesn't mean the speaker doesn't use rhythm to powerful effect. For instance, take a look at the way he shapes these important lines in the poem's third section:
It avails not, || time nor place || —distance avails not,
I am with you, || you men and women of a generation, || or ever so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, || so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, || I was one of a crowd,It's not a regular meter, but caesura and parallelism that shape the rhythms of this passage. The speaker's mid-line breaks give these lines their stately, unhurried, swinging pace, and set off his repetitions, centering his big idea: that the people of the past, present, and future are all mysteriously connected.
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Rhyme Scheme
Written in free verse, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" doesn't use a rhyme scheme. Instead, the poem gets its music from intense repetitions and sonic effects like alliteration, assonance, and sibilance.
For instance, take a look at the way the speaker uses anaphora, assonance, and alliteration in lines 33-36 in the poem's third section:
Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water,
Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,Here, the repetition of the word "look'd" gives this passage its resounding, powerful sound: it's like a bell tolling. And within the lines, assonant /i/ and /oh/ sounds and alliterative /h/ and /fl/ sounds create moments of harmonious music that evoke the speaker's pleasure in what he sees.
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“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Speaker
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The speaker of "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is pretty likely to be Walt Whitman himself. Much of Whitman's poetry is written in his own distinctive first-person voice, and the speaker's life experiences match Whitman's own: Whitman, too, lived in Brooklyn for many years.
If this speaker isn't Whitman, he's certainly Whitmanesque: a passionate, emotive person with a knack for seeing the everyday world in cosmic terms. Making an everyday journey across the East River, this speaker is blown away by his feelings of connection to the people of both the past and the future. The "distance" between the living, the dead, and the not-yet-born doesn't matter a bit: to him, all of humanity takes part in a mystical connection that transcends time and space.
The thought gives him profound joy and consolation. In this speaker's eyes, no one is really alone.
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“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Setting
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"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is set, as its title suggests, on the ferry across the East River that travels between Manhattan and Brooklyn. And while this poem's action takes place in Whitman's own time—the mid-19th century—part of the speaker's point is that the things he sees and feels transcend his own time and place. The people of New York will keep seeing these same sights and feeling these same feelings for years after his own death.
The setting here is thus at once specific (noting Brooklyn's "ample hills" and the boats gathered in the harbors of Manhattan) and transcendent. The speaker might be looking at this lively city scene in his own time, but he also feels connected to the people of the past and the future who have stood—and will stand—in exactly the same spot, feeling the same feelings.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
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Literary Context
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is often considered the quintessential American poet. His stylistic innovations, mystical vision of the world, and righteous outrage against injustice mark him out as a writer unlike any other in his time.
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" first appeared in the 1856 edition of Whitman's magnum opus, Leaves of Grass. Whitman would revisit both this poem and the collection as a whole many times over the course of his life. Leaves of Grass went through five substantial revisions (and a few reissues), and what started as a slim collection of twelve poems became a sprawling tome full of hundreds of works, charting Whitman's long life and philosophical maturation.
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is a great example of Whitman's characteristic style: most of his poems used this same dramatic, declarative first-person voice. Whitman was a pioneer of free verse, writing without rhyme or meter during a time when most English-language poetry was pretty formally rigorous. His ideas were also ahead of their time. Like his friends and colleagues Emerson and Thoreau, Whitman saw the divine in the everyday world around him (and especially in nature), and his passion for the American landscape would be an inspiration to later environmentalists.
A much-beloved poet, Whitman has had a deep and enduring influence on many writers who have followed him, from Allen Ginsberg to Ezra Pound to Joyce Harjo.
Historical Context
When Whitman first wrote "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," the U.S. was on the verge of descending into civil war. One ominous harbinger of that long and bloody conflict was the Bleeding Kansas incident, which occurred in 1856, the very year that Whitman wrote the first draft of this poem. In this series of violent clashes, settlers fought over whether the Kansas territory would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. Such conflicts over slavery would eventually split the North and South apart and set the country at war against itself.
A fervent believer in universal human connectedness, Whitman was staunchly anti-slavery and pacifistic. He never went to war himself, but saw plenty of wartime misery as a volunteer nurse and a horrified onlooker at slave markets. His experiences of those atrocities (and his post-war grief over Abraham Lincoln, whom he deeply admired) would inspire some of his most famous poems.
And while Whitman sometimes despaired over humanity's way of making the same terrible mistakes over and over, he was also ultimately optimistic about the beauty and worth of existence. The hopeful vision of connectedness in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" speaks to his persistent faith in human fellowship.
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More “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Resources
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External Resources
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Whitman's Style — Read an appreciation of Whitman's distinctive style, and learn more about his influences.
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A Short Biography — Learn more about Whitman's life and work.
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An Early Edition — Visit the Whitman Archive to see images of the poem from the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.
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Whitman's Legacy — Listen to the poets Allen Ginsberg, Sharon Olds, and Galway Kinnell talking about Whitman's influence on their work in this 1992 conversation.
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The Poem Aloud — Watch a 2019 collaborative performance of the poem by Brooklynites, made in honor of Whitman's 200th birthday. (And note the folks wearing "Ample Hills" shirts: a famous Brooklyn ice cream parlor is named after a line in this poem!)
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Walt Whitman
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