Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

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.

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.

The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours
     of the day,
The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disinte-grated,
     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.

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.

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.

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,
Look'd on the haze on the hills southward and south-west-ward,
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