Published Works

Books by Whitman

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1 ON the beach at night alone,

As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her
savage and husky song,

As I watch the bright stars shining—I think a thought
of the clef of the universes, and of the future.

2A 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 in different worlds,

All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the
fishes, the brutes,

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 com-
pactly hold them.

Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price, editors.