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One of Walt Whitman’s earliest memories was when General Lafayette, a French hero in the American Revolution, picked him up out of a crowd and hoisted him onto his shoulder and paraded him around Brooklyn. This memory signifies the times in which Whitman was born, May 31, 1819; when America had just regained stability as a nation and had nowhere to go but up. These times were most important to Whitman’s way of thinking, and had much influence on his both democratic and urban poetry. Times were tough financially for his family, but Walt often liked to distance himself from them and ride the ferries from East River to New York City. During these commutes, Whitman became mystified by these transitions, and the experiences are recounted in a poem he wrote nearly 30 years later entitled “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”. In this poem the act of crossing suggested a passage from life to death and back to life, and the passage from poet to reader via the medium (transportation) of poetry. Another of Whitman’s favorite childhood experiences was visiting his grandparents on Long Island. Whitman didn’t enjoy seeing his relatives so much as he did observing the rural countryside and, more influentially, the shore side of the islan