Even on a day as sad as this, the Hudson River — your river, my river — rolls on.
We are all forever grateful.
It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations
hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was
refresh’d,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood
yet was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes
of steamboats, I look’d.
— Walt Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”