Read "Similitude" by Walt Whitman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
1. On the beach at night alone, / As the old Mother sways her to and fro, singing her savage and husky song, / As I watch the bright stars shining -- I think a thought of the clef of the / universes, and of the future.
2. A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all, / All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, / asteroids, / All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same, / All distances of place, however wide, / All distances of time -- all inanimate forms, / All Souls -- all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in / different worlds, / All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes -- the fishes, the brutes, / All men and women -- me also; / All nations, colours, barbarisms, civilisations, languages; / All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe; / All lives and deaths -- all of the past, present, future; / This vast similitude spans them, and always has spanned, and shall for ever / span them, and compactly hold them.