On the Beach at Night Alone

On the Beach at Night Alone

Original Text
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1891-92): 207. PS 3201 1891 Robarts Library.
1On the beach at night alone,
2As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
3As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.
4A vast similitude interlocks all,
5All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
6All distances of place however wide,
7All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
8All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
9All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
10All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
11All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
12All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
13This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
14And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

Notes

3] clef: sign at the beginning of a staff to prescribe the position of the notes. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1856
Publication Notes
(as "Clef Poem")
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme
unrhyming