The poem the question refers to is A Noiseless Patient Spider By Walt Whitman.
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. (LINE 5)
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, (LINE 8)
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
Answer:
In the first five lines of the poem, the speaker describes the loneliness, isolation, and unfruitful attempts of a spider to connect things by launching, unreeling, and speeding its filaments or its web. In the second part of the poem, the speaker illustrates that his sould is similar to the condition of this lonely and struggling spider.
The use of parallelism in lines 5 and 8 suggest that the speaker's soul is like the spider is: They are both isolated, alone, reflective and struggling to connect itself to things and connect things in the vacant vast surrounding they are in.