A Noiseless Patient Spider

“Whispers of Heavenly Death” by Walt Whitman (1868)

Written hard on the heels of Whitman’s own ghastly experiences as a nurse in Washington during the Civil War, this cycle of poems first featured “A Noiseless Patient Spider.” The poems detail Whitman’s grand vision of how death cannot be the terror small minds allow it to be. He gently coaxes his reader to follow him into a radical new interpretation of death as a transcription into a soothing spiritual reality beyond the confirmation of the senses.

“Resignation” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1850)

The heartbreaking contemplation of a father struggling to understand the implications of the death of his child, Longfellow’s poem can be contrasted with Whitman’s thumping affirmation of a transcendent cosmos that renders such individual deaths irrelevant and a distraction from the business of engaging the now. This message—valorizing humility, patience, and suffering—is exactly what Whitman rejects. Longfellow convinces himself death is a transition and that he must be patient for the reunion promised by Christianity in the glory of heaven.

“Footnote to Howl” by Allen Ginsberg (1956)

Ginsberg, one of Whitman’s most ardent admirers, drew much of his Beat gospel of dazzling and uncompromising optimism in every element of the physical universe from Whitman. Here, Ginsberg chants the glory and holiness of the world as an experience into the conventional perception of eternity, exactly what Whitman celebrates in his poem. The poem was famously recorded in 1997 by Rock & Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter and fellow New Jerseyite Patti Smith.