Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Line 50
These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you,
- The speaker seems to think we have seen the amazing panorama he just described. In a way, we have. We've seen it in our mind's eye from reading about it.
- Is Whitman saying that to hear or read about something is the same as experiencing it? What is he up to here? That's one of the big questions of the poem.
Line 51
I project myself a moment to tell you—also I return.
- There he goes again, our time-traveling desperado, projecting himself into the future to warn us of a terrible, terrible fate for humanity! Or, actually, just to tell us about some boats.