In the poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,"" by Walt Whitman, connection is being explored between humans in relation to space and time. The use of Imagery becomes a way that is used to describe the observations, and surroundings that are being made while riding the ferry between Brooklyn and Manhattan. He develops these images throughout the course of the poem. The poem explores the difficulties of discovering the relevance of life. The methods that helped Whitman hold his own idea of the importance of life are defined with some simple yet discerning and convincing observations. By living under and for the standards of others, a person can never live a gratifying life. The poem lays emphasis on the idea, that humans are equal and share the same experiences from birth till death.
Whitman begins to illustrate his love and curiosity for the hundreds of people that ride the ferry every day. His thoughts lead him to curiosity, which made him think about all the people who had commuted in the past, and how many are yet to repeat it in the future. He states how everyone can see different things even if they are on the same ferry. A hundred years can pass by and people would still be seeing the same things. In stanza 3 the speaker says, "I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence ". Therefore, Whitman assumes that people see the same things he does, and that they react in the same way he does and it brings them together in a very real sense.
Through the imagery and language that Whitman uses in the poem, he is trying to say that there is a communion between past and future generations. He states,.
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high; A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them, Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
