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. 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. 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 lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine, I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it. It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, The dark threw its patches down upon me also. Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves! Gorgeous clouds of the sunset drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me! Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! Fly on, sea birds! Fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air; Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you! We fathom you not - we love you - there is perfection in you also, You furnish your parts toward eternity, Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul. Lines from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," Walt Whitman born Long Island, NY -- (1819-1829)