Poem Of The Day

Another of Whitman's small and great poem. This one is called "A Noiseless Patient Spider". The poem imagines a small spider noiselessly and forever toiling in an uncertain surrounding, trying to find its footing. The spider isolated on a rocky beach, clutching to anything it can hold on to, sending out yarns and pulling them back in to explore the vast emptiness around it, to figure out anything it can root on to, anything that made sense or to make sense of it.

An precisely in the same manner, the speaker's effort to connect to the universe. Standing there, along in this world, his soul laid bare, surrounded and detached in this vastness of space and thought and time. Never tiring to find a connection, a meaning in this world that gives some sense to it, some perspective to living and life in this endless search and madness till the time the gossamer thread do clutch to something tangible and real. Whether the speaker is able to find something in the universe or he spends his whole life searching for it is not clear.

You can read another of Whitman's gems here.

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking 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.

Poem Of The Day

The phone giant Apple had been parroting lines from the below poem [O me! O life!] by great American poet Walt Whitman in their TV commercials for their new iphones. Bit ironic considering the only verse the phone users contribute is endless egoistic selfies and small talk over instant messaging. Here is the poem for you to reflect in its full glory!

O me! O life!

  O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
  Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,
  Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
  Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd,
  Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
  Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
  The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

  Answer.
  That you are here—that life exists and identity,
  That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.


This is so so true. So many times around us, in the rigors of the mundane life and sometimes rootless and aimless lives, we do stop by and question it - what good is it? for what? The poet gives the answer that life is just for living. That's it! Life is a reason enough for living. Existence is a reason enough for existing. And in this powerful play that goes on around us, you contribute to it by just living.. existing... I Live because I Exist!