by Whitman · Cluster: Self-Knowledge · Immortality · Self-Reliance
Abstract
Famous two-stanza lyric comparing a spider casting filaments into the void to the soul ceaselessly flinging gossamer threads to connect with the spheres.
Connections
Motifs: Animals Themes & Concepts: Self-Knowledge, Alienation, Soul’s Journey, Sublime Forms & Genres: Lyric
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: WHISPERS OF HEAVENLY DEATH
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.