A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider
by Walt Whitman
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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 launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself.
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detatched, 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.
***
“A Noiseless Patient Spider” illustrated and set to music
“A Noiseless Patient Spider” by Walt Whitman, read and illustrated by Travis G.; Music is “At Wit’s End” by Hans Zimmer. Images created with GIMP and a Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet. Audio recording and effects done with Audacity, with iZotope Vinyl plugin. Movie compiled in Windows Movie Maker.
“Whitman Interlude” Deborah Mason
Performed by Virginia Chorale (World Premiere)
“A Noiseless Patient Spider” by Walt Whitman was originally published in Leaves of Grass as part of another poem. “Whispers of Heavenly Death”. It was later retitled “A Noiseless Patient Spider” and reprinted in Passage to India.
“Spider busy pulling sticky thread”
April 10, 2011
Photo by Flickr.com user James Niland
Creative Commons License
