Buddhists, and Hindus that the soul has a prior existence (like Whitman’s
“®oat”) enables them “to avoid entrapping the soul in durable time by
postulating a pre-existence with no beginning whatsoever.”^42 The per-
sona, no longer feeling trapped in “durable time”—since he also exists in
another “time” that has no beginning and, presumably, no end—can say
to the living that “time nor place—distance avails not, / I am with you,
men and women of a generation, or even many generations hence,” and
he can inspire them by a sort of perpetual spiritual outreach:
What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or
man that looks at my face?
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?The persona pictures himself infusing his “meaning” into those yet un-
born during the “now”—the timeless moment of the poet’s imagination
or (looked at objectively) the moment when the reader discovers the truth
embodied in Leaves of Grass. The poem’s “now” designates both the mo-
ment in which the living poet reaches out to his contemporaries and the
eternal “now” in which the persona perpetually inspires future readers.
The “now” also constitutes an emotional haven for the poet himself—an
imaginary postmortem milieu in which the persona can envision himself
serene and free from mortal disappointments.
As he watches the worldly spectacle from above, the persona once
again reminds the generations of passengers of his enduring presence:
“Consider you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be
looking upon you”; the “you” again encompasses both the mass of hu-
manity and the individual who is reading “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” As
a social critic, Walt Whitman was deeply concerned with what sort of
Americans the future would produce. Hence the ectoplasmic persona re-
minds the yet-unborn generations of Americans that “I considered long
and seriously of you before you were born” and that he may be “as good
as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me.” His declaration that he
will continue to be an object of regard for all living generations, who will
“look back at me because I look forward to them” is one of several such
statements in Leaves of Grass.^43 He speaks of “myself disintegrated... yet
part of the scheme,” a condition that should render him visible through
an exercise of the creative imagination; yet in this mythic realm of the
everlasting “now” his words and his abiding presence seem destined for-
“The Progress of Souls” / 123