Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

       1
  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.

       2
  The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,
  The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated, 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.

       3
  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-westward,
  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 pilothouses,
  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
      frolic-some 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
      high and glaringly into the night,
  Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow
      light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.

       4
  These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
  I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
  The men and women I saw were all near to me,
  Others the same—others who look back on me because I look'd forward
      to them,
  (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

       5
  What is it then between us?
  What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

  Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
  I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
  I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the
      waters around it,
  I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
  In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
  In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
  I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
  I too had receiv'd ............