Words from Walt Whitman

The poet Edwin Denby called him "Brooklyn Whitman, commuter Walt." Whitman's words seem appropriate today:

Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross
      from shore to shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and
      west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south
      and east,
Others will see the islands large and small,
Fifty years hence others will see them as they cross,
      the sun half an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred
      years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sun-set, the pouring in of the flood-
      tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky,
      so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one
      of a crowd,
Just as you are refreshed by the gladness of the river,
      and the bright flow, I was refreshed,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with
      the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships,
      and the thick-stemmed pipes of steamboats, I
      looked.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
These and all else were to me the same as they are
      to you,
I project myself a moment to tell you - also I return.

Walt Whitman, lines from "Sun-Down Poem" (later "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"), Leaves of Grass, 1856 edition