Two stanzas and a single image split in two. In the first, a spider, alone on a little promontory, launches filament after filament out of itself into the vacant surrounding, feeling for somewhere to catch. In the second, the poet's soul does exactly the same: standing in oceans of space, it ceaselessly throws out its threads, seeking a bridge, an anchor that will hold.
It is Whitman at his barest and most modern: no catalogue, no crowd, only one small creature and a soul, joined by the act of casting a thread toward the unknown in the hope that one day it will take hold.