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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Born on May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman is the author of Leaves of Grass...
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FURTHER READING
Beach Poems
that they were at the beach [excerpt]
by Leslie Scalapino
Beach Glass
by Amy Clampitt
Beach Walk
by Henri Cole
Dover Beach
by Matthew Arnold, read by David Kirby
Fabliau of Florida
by Wallace Stevens
The Walrus and the Carpenter
by Lewis Carroll
Toothpaste Kids Sunburn
by Jordan Davis
With Kit, Age 7, at the Beach
by William Stafford
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On the Beach at Night Alone

 
by Walt Whitman

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 clef 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 spann'd, 
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.






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