In “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” Walt Whitman describes a spider working on its web. The spider is on the most precise and craftiest part of laying down the first line. The spider is trying to get the little strings it’s shooting out to stick to something. The speaker turns a simple, carefully chosen image into a metaphor for the human soul. He fills the poem with his curiosity, excitement, and love for the world. The image of the patient and diligent spider drives the poem. In line 1, we are given a picture of the first stages of web building. The rest of the poem falls into place after this, just as the web starts to come together. In line 3, the narrator gives us a sense of how isolated the spider is by depicting the space around it as
