Walt Whitman

A beautiful, sunny Sunday morning here in Middleburgh, as we ponder the vastness of the universe and our place in it.

Here’s a poem by Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), American poet, essayist and journalist.

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,comets, asteroids,
All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same,
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 indifferent worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes--the fishes, thebrutes,
All men and women--me also;
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 them, and enclose them.

--Walt Whitman