Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Section 19

Lines 92-94

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?

• Perhaps no other poet moves so quickly to make friends with the reader as Whitman does. He plays with the reader's expectation that we can observe the writer at a safe distance.
• Reading this poem is like a homecoming, and the speaker is like family. He could be even be watching you…right now…through the window! The speaker acts like he can see right through us. We can't hide from him.