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.
Notes
Where Amy Lowell gathered the golden fragments of an afternoon to shelter them from the fires of a world war, Walt Whitman stands barefoot at the edge of the dark surf, releasing all temporal anxiety into the vast, indifferent cradle of the night. The speaking subject listens to the steady repetition of the waves beneath the bright stars, recognizing an ancient cosmic similitude that interlocks every soul, every era, and every distance into an unbroken, enduring continuum. It anchors September’s theme of Echo in an ecstatic philosophy of return, assuring us that no life or gesture is ever truly discarded, but carried within a universal rhythm that hums across centuries and calls us back home. #September #WaltWhitman #Existentialism #Universe #Poetry