Lyric Poem · Nature

On the Beach at Night, Alone

by Walt Whitman

ON the beach at night alone,

As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,

As I watch the bright stars shining—I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of

the future.

A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all,

All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids,

All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same,

All distances of place, however wide,

All distances of time—all inanimate forms,

All Souls—all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,

All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the fishes, the brutes,

All men and women—me also;

All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages;

All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe;

All lives and deaths—all of the past, present, future;

This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d, and shall forever span them, and

compactly hold them, and enclose them.

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“On the Beach at Night, Alone” by Walt Whitman — quilloak.com/poems/on-the-beach-at-night-alone

Quick facts

Poem: On the Beach at Night, Alone
Poet: Walt Whitman
Length: 17 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Nature, Peace

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 17 lines · 2 stanzas of 4–13 lines
End rhyme: No regular perfect end rhyme. The poem may still be using slant rhyme, assonance, or internal echo, which this check does not score.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record: Walt Whitman1819–1892
Source record: PoetryDBOn the Beach at Night, Alone by walt-whitman, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 648d98e2d952f2d4…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.