' 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,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years
hence are more to me, and more in my meditations,
that you might suppose. '
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is a poem about a man taking the Brooklyn ferry home from Manhattan at the end of a hardworking day. It shows Whitman’s astutely observed idea about all humans united experience of life.
The shore here represents the various stages of life that a human crosses. But is the crossing easy? No, not for anyone. The highs and lows of life are the "ebb-tide" and the "flood tide" that Whitman continually refers to in the poem.
Just as we live in a world where nothing is in isolation, everything we do also has a ripple effect. Our actions are responsible for someone else’s happiness or misery. Our words can evoke happiness, can hurt someone and inspire others. Just like the waves of the sea cause the other waves to form through.
"The similarities of the past and those of the future," and "the others that are to follow me, the ties between them and me,", Whitman uses this symbolism to show that his actions and words can be followed by someone else or cause another into a word or action.
Obviously referring to the river and its associated aspects like the ferry, the current of the water as symbols and also as a rich natural depiction, Whitman paints a beautiful picture of humanity and the comfort it gives in its collectivism and multitude.
Themes portrayed in the poem are -
Unity - in the idea of all humanity seen as one. Experiencing joys, sorrows, stages of life all as one. Maybe at a different time and maybe in different quantities, but we do take the tests, bear the pains and can have scoreboards of checked lists of achievements and losses.
Nature in the form of cityscape - a very beautiful description of the American city is done here with vivid pictures of Manhattan and the nearby islands.
'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;
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 '
Working class - The poem shows the working class life of people who have the daily goings on. Waking, travelling, commuting. Scores of people going to their workplaces and all rushing, living, never pausing - to run a home and bring bread and butter to their tables. And a clear picture is painted of the workers at the ships and ferryside too.
' 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 pilot-houses'
Illustrations - Chris Ede and Brooklyn library
No comments:
Post a Comment