Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman

            Humans have a powerful relationship with each other that cannot be destroyed by neither time nor distance. No matter what time period or location humans are in, humans are always interconnected because of their ability to have the same feelings and behaviors. In Walt Whitman’s poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Whitman discusses his belief of how similar human beings are by describing his experience when crossing the Brooklyn Ferry. In the third section of his poem, there are various lines where he claims others are feeling and seeing what he sees when crossing the Brooklyn Ferry. He says, “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” (22-23). In this line, Whitman is clearly expressing how he does not feel any different from other humans even if they are in a different generation. In addition, he confidently affirms that the sight of crossing the Brooklyn ferry provokes the same feelings to every individual.

           

Throughout the third section of his poem, Whitman also emphasizes his relations with others and what he sees by repeating the first or first few words of almost each line. He repeats “Just as any of you” constantly in the first stanza and in the second stanza, “Saw”, “Look’d,” and “The.” Although in the first stanza, Whitman focuses in describing how he is just like others when crossing the ferry, in the second stanza Whitman focuses on the sense of sight. According to Whitman, the sense of sight makes humans have more in common with one another because it permits us to share the same views and experiences of life. Whitman says, “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” (28-29).  In other words, Whitman is saying that just like others who have crossed the ferry, he witnessed what they witnessed. He describes what he sees by using vivid verbs such as, “shimmering,” “glistening,” and “oscillating” to create vivid imagery for the reader. In addition, he uses personification to describe the river when he says, “Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d” (24) Furthermore, Whitman uses a contemplative tone throughout his poem, when he questions the differences among humanity. In fact, the event of crossing the Brooklyn Ferry in the poem could be symbolic of how every human go through the same situations in life. Whitman later on reveals this idea in section five of his poem when he questions the reader directly, “What is it then between us? /What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us” (57-58). Meaning what makes each one us so different from one another?