The words “Vast Similitude” means a sense of connectedness one feels by virtue of our humanity. Whitman expresses this idea of similitude in many of his poems in many different forms such as in nature, connection between the speaker and strangers, and the connection between the speaker and all people in the past, present, and future. In his poetry, Whitman has similitude between the speaker and strangers, this is shown many times throughout “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”. Whitman very often acts as though everyone thinks the same as him which connects them all with him. In “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”, Whitman connects with the strangers through the use of the ferry, “ just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried.” Everyone else crossing the ferry is doing as he has done and others will do, they look at the same things from the same places. “These and all else were to me the same as they are to you, I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river, the men and women I saw were all near to me, others the same others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them.” The way he says these things he makes …show more content…
In the ninth section of the poem he is commanding the river, the clouds, and the waves,”Flow on river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves! Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me...Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!” he continues to do this with everything else around him commanding them all to continue what they are doing, that the physical things around us let us know who or what we are. Another connection he makes between people and nature is that anyone even after time has passed will still feel the same wind, sun, clouds, and even see the