enjoy, and reach out to the living—or at least he can imagine that he is
doing so. And because Whitman consistently links his personal identity
and his life force to the preservation of his voice (Terry Nathanson has
said that Whitman is de¤ned by his voice),^39 the elegance of the (presum-
ably dead) persona’s voice is evidence of his enduring identity.
As a meditation on life, death, and immortality “Crossing Brooklyn
Ferry” maintains a unity of drama and doctrine. The poem’s action, like
that of a classic drama, takes place in the span of a single day, from the
dawn until the factory ¤res become visible at night, and it occurs in a
limited space over the East River from which the persona observes the
ongoing spectacle below him and yearns to convince the living that the
qualities that ennoble life also ennoble death. Of immortality Whitman
had declared, “that to pass [mortal] existence is supreme over all, and
what we thought death is but life brought to a higher parturition.”^40 And
this is the lesson that the compassionate persona wishes to impart to the
living of all generations, to convince them that the emotional tug that
drew him to them when he was alive still ties him to them in the “now”
of his postmortal state and will remain tied to the living “ever so many
generations hence”:
Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also
face to face.Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how
curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross,
returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more
to me, and more to my meditations, than you might suppose.The “®ood-tide” of mortality, the clouds in the western sky, and the tran-
sit of the Charonlike ferry are all images representing the passage from
life to death. Beholding the passengers’ “curious” costumes, the persona
envisions the time when, like him, they will have shed their earthly “cos-
tumes” for a more spiritual habiliment. They also appear “curious” to him
because he longs to know the destiny of each of “you who shall cross from
“The Progress of Souls” / 121