Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 60-64
I too lived, (I was of old Brooklyn,)
I too walked the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.
- Here again we get that classic Whitman phrase, "I too."
- Just like us (not really), Whitman lived in Brooklyn, walked around Manhattan, and bathed in the East River, which could couldn't do today – it's much too polluted.
- And there's that word "curious" again. Doesn't "curious abrupt questionings," sound a little sexual? With Whitman it's always hard to tell, because he does a good job of covering his tracks. He could be talking about his earlier "curiosity" about the other passengers on his ship, although this, too, was never described in detail.
- At any rate, he has these questionings at night in bed, too.