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.
We really like "A noiseless patient spider" because of the way Whitman expresses the theme; that is, through the comparison of the speaker in the poem and a spider. The theme is: "yearn for companionship". Like the spider, the poem's speaker is patiently waiting in wonder in the middle of a vast open world for something to fulfill it’s yearns. While the
spider yearns for food , the soul of the speaker yearns for a certain someone , maybe a companion with whom to share
thoughts and feelings and to end his loneliness.
