A Noiseless Patient Spider-Walt Whitman
Poem
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.
Plot Summary
The speaker watches a spider build a web. He compares the way
this spider ceaselessly works to the way his soul works to
understand the eternal.
Summary
Whitman as speaker watches as a spider builds a web, creating
"filament, filament, filament, out of itself." He compares the way
this spider ceaselessly works to the way his soul continues to
"fling" its "gossamer thread" into the "measureless oceans of
space" and hopes to "catch somewhere."
