Tuesday, September 25, 2018

A Noiseless Patient Spider



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.





2 comments:

Barbara Rogers said...

Whitman and you have done a good job to make it somewhat less scary, but I'd be trying to get the silk out of my hair, and brushing off everywhere to make sure she wasn't hitching a ride on me...and maybe making a bit of noise too!

Elizabeth Varadan, Author said...

Oh, what a lovely poem. When I am not shuddering about spiders (what is it about them, I sonder, that seems creepier than insects?), I, too have marveled over their ability to spin treads and filaments out of themselves and then travel on them. Whitman's poems really captures the wonder.