Poetry for Students, Volume 31

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament,

out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. 5

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans

of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seek-

ing 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. 10

POEM SUMMARY

Stanza 1
‘‘A Noiseless Patient Spider’’ consists of two
unrhymed stanzas of five lines each. The first
stanza describes how the poet is observing a
spider. In the first line, the poet notes how silent
the spider is, and how it shows no hurry as it
stands on the edge of a promontory—a small
hill or cliff that overlooks lower-lying land or
water. The spider is on its own; no other life is
apparent around it. The poet then observes
(line 3) how the spider begins to explore its envi-
ronment by putting out its fine silk threads, man-
ufactured within its own body, to form a web. In
the last line of the first stanza, the poet continues
to observe this process, which goes on seemingly
without end as the spider goes about its self-
appointed task.

Stanza 2
From the description of the activity of the spider
in the first stanza, the poet now turns his atten-
tion to himself and directly addresses his own
soul. When a poet addresses an abstract entity
in this manner it is known as anapostrophe.
Through this apostrophe, the poet compares
his soul to the spider. Just as the spider stood
in isolation, so does the poet’s soul. It is sur-
rounded by the huge, infinite universe but is
also separate from it. Line 8 focuses on the
activity of the poet’s soul, which is continually,
like the spider, engaged in some activity that will
connect it to its vast environment, that will end
its solitude and detachment. Like the spider also,
it is patient, endlessly trying to make these con-
nections until it meets with success. Success is
presented as like building a bridge, or putting
down an anchor, so that one thing is connected

to another. The last line repeats the same idea

with a spiderweb image, and the poem ends with

the poet’s second direct invocation of his own

soul, as if he is wanting the soul to listen, to take

note of what he is saying.

Themes

Separateness and the Desire for

Connection

The speaker in Whitman’s poem is very con-

scious of his own isolation, perhaps his own

loneliness. He therefore sees the tiny spider,

alone on a promontory, as a suitable analogue

for his own condition. The spider and the

speaker are both small beings in a vast universe

that stretches all around them. The poet feels this

sense of separation from the whole very keenly,

which is why he observes the activity of his own

soul (which surely encompasses his mind and

heart) as it endlessly and patiently, just like the

spider, seeks some kind of connection with

the wider whole. This connection could be as

simple as the forming of a friendship with another

human being, or it could be understood in a more

abstract sense as a man desperately wanting to

feel some kinship with the life of the earth and the

universe as a whole. As line 8 indicates, he is

prepared to try many different approaches to

make this connection until he finally succeeds.

Then he will no longer be alone in the vast, imper-

sonal cosmos. The last line of the poem seems to

suggest a fairly random, undirected process,

whereby the soul is willing to try anything and

everything in its attempt to connect, hoping that

eventually, perhaps just by chance, like a

MEDIA

ADAPTATIONS

InThe Essential Walt Whitman, a CD issued

by HarperCollins Audio in 2008, Ed Begley

recites selections from Whitman’sLeaves of

Grass.

A Noiseless Patient Spider