Four-time Academy Award nominee Edward Norton took Stephen Colbert and The Late Show‘s audience on a quite moving ferry ride Wednesday night.
Two-thirds of the way into their 22-minute sit-down (the extended version of which is posted to the program’s YouTube channel), Colbert and Norton got to discussion their shared love of 19th century poet Walt Whitman—and specifically the piece “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” which was originally published in 1856 as “Sun-Down Poem.”
Colbert asked Norton if he might read some of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” for the audience, and Norton had prepared a “distillation” of that long piece with a dash of Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”
Norton—much in the vein of when Sir Ian McKellen during a February visit read a Shakespearean monologue from the play Sir Thomas More—took the stage and launched into a powerful, four-minute reading, revealing that one small part had been customized for his host:
“And you that shall cross—you, Stephen Colbert from New Jersey—you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.”
Whitman’s reflection on a ride across the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” explores themes of human connection and continuity, emphasizing the shared experiences of people across different generations.
It could be seen a fitting pick to speak the end of Colbert’s latest late-night run, seeing as it posits, among other things, that neither time nor space can truly separate people from each other.
Or as Norton said of the piece, “You realize artists are capable of speaking through time in some sense and reminding us that everybody and every time has gone through these moments, these anxieties.
“Whitman, of all American poets, really seemed to understand that though he stood somewhere in time, he was speaking to you and me right now,” he added. “He wanted to convey in some sense that we are still in this all together.”
Watch Norton’s reading above.
Norton obliging Colbert’s request was one of several ways that guests have been honoring The Late Show‘s host during the CBS talker’s final months. On the March 6 episode, longtime peer and Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon serenaded Colbert with a rendition of My Way, modified to include nods to The Colbert Report, President Trump wanting Colbert off the air, and other in-jokes.
The following night, John Lithgow delivered a tribute of his own—a poem he wrote, titled “The Mighty Colbert,” which doubled as both tribute and elegy for the host whose show will end its run May 21.
