What Is The Mood Of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry By Walt Whitman

Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!” The first line of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry sets the tone for the rest of the poem. Throughout his journey between Manhattan and Brooklyn, Whitman marvels at the beauty around him and also speculates about the crowds packed around him. Whitman then uses these thoughts and observances to create a poem highlighting the thread of time connecting all humans. Much of the “New York Experience” has been shared by people throughout history. They go to the same places, do the same motions, walk the same streets, and bathe in the same waters. Whitman realizes this, so he poeticizes that shared experience. In Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Walt Whitman combines imagery, repetition, and structure to creatively craft

He uses three particular images to create the sensation of motion and stasis, of flow and ebb. The first image used in that manner is that of the flood-tide. Whitman mentions the tide in the first few words of Crossing, and in doing so sets up his manner of displaying the passing of time for the rest of the poem. By invoking the run, the swell, and the current of the tide, Whitman creates movement, which will be necessarily followed by the stillness of the tide’s ebb. The second image is of people standing still and leaning against the ferry’s railing, even as the boat speeds on across the water. They are frozen in time even as the ferry drives on and the waters flow beneath them. This motion and stasis continue in the image of seagulls. The seagulls have “motionless wings,” yet they still move, they still float through the

The poem has no real meter, as is typical of Whitman’s free verse, and the stanza structure is seemingly sporadic. The amount and length of the stanzas change every section, from one stanza with four lines in section one, to two stanzas, one with twenty-five lines and one with seven lines in section nine. The overall structure of Crossing is also somewhat reflective of the tide. The sections ebb and flow, building up in waves of passion, then crashing, and calming down with the ebb. The more passionate the stanza, the longer it is. For instance, in section three the second stanza is twenty-two lines long, but that fevered length ebbs back in section four, which is a mere five lines. The length of stanza to communicate the flood-tide is again seen in section six, which is twenty-one lines, as well as in section nine, where the first stanza is twenty-five