Crossing Brooklyn Ferry: One And The Same

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as their children will and their ancestors did. The
poet questions the significance of a person's achievements by asking, "My
great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre [sic]?"
It would be hard for any person to measure their self-accomplishments on
the planetary scale which Whitman is speaking of. The second verse of the
poem introduces the metaphor of the world being a "simple, compact, well-
joined scheme" with the people dissolved into the "eternal float of
solution." Like the mechanical"scheme" that Whitman refers to, much of the
poem consists of topics that possess a repetitive or mechanical quality.
Sunrises, sunsets, tides, seasons, circling birds, the daily New York
commute on the Brooklyn Ferry, and the cycling of generations are woven
into the poem. A substantial amount of stanzas in the poem all begin with
the same word. The continuous use of repetitive imagery conveys the
feeling that our existence is in fact part of an infinitely moving ...

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