On The Beach At Night Alone By Walt Whitman

A reading of Walt Whitman’s “On the Beach at Night Alone,” published in its familiar revised form in 1867. Beginning at the edge of the sea beneath the stars, Whitman moves outward into an expansive reflection on distance, time, life, death, and the connections between them. This reading offers a few quiet minutes to listen without needing to analyze, followed by space to remain with the sea, the stars, and the vastness of what you have heard.

Transcript

Welcome. Find a comfortable place to settle and allow yourself for just a few minutes to be carried somewhere else to the edge of the sea at night beneath the stars. This is Walt Whitman's On the Beach at Night Alone, Published in 1867. On the beach at night alone, As the old mother sways her to and fro, Singing her husky song, As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the cleft of the universes and of the future. A vast similitude interlocks all. All spheres, Grown, Ungrown, Small, Large, Suns, Moons, Planets. 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 nations, Colors, Barbarisms, Civilizations, 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 forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them. Perhaps stay here for another moment with the sea, The stars, And the vastness of what you've just heard. Thank you for listening.