Poetry Assignment Personal Response

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT

by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.

Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
© 2002 Poetry-Archive.com


ANALYSIS:
This poems speaks to me on a spiritual level. sometimes I feel like the little girl in the poem. She has no hope that the stars in the sky that she is observing will be back the nights after she observes them in the sky. She only knows what she sees, that the clouds are overtaking the wonderful stars in the night sky. Sometimes I can only relate to the obvious things and I cannot relate to things that I cannot see or touch.
The little girl is lucky to have such a caring father on her side. He is there to comfort her and to make her feel like she has nothing to worry about. He also tells her about the possibility of higher spiritual beings and questions her about her beliefs. I can relate to this because I would feel better because I like to have people question me and I like to defend my beliefs. I also like to have people there to comfort me and be there for me when I need someone.