A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER

Let’s follow America’s best (Emily) with her second-best poet, Walt Whitman - or is it the other way around? No matter, the facts of life might be conservative according to Margaret Thatcher, but the effects of great verse are liberal, liberating, and radical.

A NOISELESS, PATIENT SPIDER by Walt Whitman

A noiseless, patient spider,
I marked, where, on a little promontory,
it stood isolated;
Marked how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament,
out of itself’
Ever unreeling them - ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly, musing, venturing, throwing - seeking the
spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be formed-
till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere,
O my Soul.