WALl WHITMAN 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 PS 3238.M47 
 
 Walt Whltmanithe poet of the wider selfh 
 
 3 1924 022 226 124 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022226124 
 
WALT WHITMAN 
 
 THE POET OF THE 
 WIDER SELFHOOD 
 
WALT WHITMAN 
 
 THE POET OF THE WIDER 
 SELFHOOD 
 
 BY 
 
 MILA TUPPER MAYNARD 
 
 % 
 
 CHICAGO 
 CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
 
 V 
 
Copyright, igoJ 
 By MILA TUPPER MAYNARD 
 
 , DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 
 CHICAGO 
 
A Glimpse of the Man 
 
WALT WHITMAN 
 
 I. — A Glimpse of the Man 
 
 " Convict Whitman of any narrowness or partiality 
 whatever and you strike him a fatal blow. The one thing 
 he must be to make good his claim is to be all-inclusive 
 of humanity."— yi?^« Addington Symonds. 
 
 " Walt Whitman is the best, most perfect, example 
 the world has so far had of the Cosmic Sense." — Richard 
 Maurice Burke. 
 
 Walt Whitman is an offshoot of some of the 
 oldest American families. For many genera- 
 tions his ancestors had lived upon Long Island 
 and were Dutch and English. Upon one 
 side an ardent Quaker strain is found. 
 
 Born in 1819, his death in 1892 found an 
 old man who had breathed to the full the rich- 
 est maturity of a marvelous century. The 
 experiences of the poet's life were well adapted 
 to that ideal of inclusive knowledge and sym- 
 pathy which controlled his thought. He 
 spent most of his life in the great cities of 
 New York, Brooklyn, Washington, and Cam- 
 
8 Walt Whitman 
 
 den, where the surging of multitudinous 
 human interests fascinated and awed him un- 
 ceasingly. 
 
 For several years he wandered in the then 
 Far West, living in New Orleans for some 
 time, but experiencing many forms of rough 
 life through the pioneer wilds of the Missis- 
 sippi Valley. Even earlier he had taught 
 school in the country regions of the East, see- 
 ing the life of all as only the ' ' boarding around ' ' 
 custom of those days made possible. 
 
 In occupations he was as inclusive as in all 
 else; farmer, teacher, traveler, printer, editor, 
 carpenter, mechanic, writer, nurse in army 
 hospitals, clerk in government offices — he was 
 all of these at times, and never allowed any 
 activity to preoccupy him so that he was not 
 first of all a lover of human beings. 
 
 Wherever there was humanity, his affec- 
 tions were enlisted. 
 
 The less a man or woman was convention- 
 alized or artificially cultured, the more his in- 
 terest was aroused. Manhood in spontaneity, 
 and natural vigor always impressed him with 
 reverential respect. With this attitude, all 
 occupations and all experiences became rich 
 harvests of broadened sympathies and living 
 knowledge. 
 
A Glimpse of the Man 
 
 The army hospital service of Walt Whitman 
 served a needed purpose in uniting him to the 
 people of his day and country. 
 
 His passion of passions was love of America 
 and of his countrymen. But the publication 
 of "Leaves of Grass," in 1855, had brought 
 upon him the most severe criticism. 
 
 Contempt or disgust had met his new out- 
 look and new method. The devoted nurse, 
 loving and beloved of the boys in blue, was 
 a figure which gradually took the place in 
 popular thought of the shameless ignoramus 
 whom they pictured as the author of the 
 "Leaves." 
 
 Those who came in personal contact with 
 Whitman were always impressed with the calm 
 greatness, spotless cleanliness, and quiet ten- 
 derness of the man. This impression which 
 the personal friend could gain all the world 
 may feel in equal measure through a study of 
 the records of his life among the wounded 
 soldiers. 
 
 He goes among them first seeking a brother 
 whom report has placed in serious danger. 
 He cannot, after seeing the distressing need, 
 leave the others, and for several years, until 
 his own health is undermined, he gives him- 
 self entirely to the men. 
 
lo Walt Whitman 
 
 He does not serve as official nurse or in any 
 regular capacity, but reserves himself for 
 the innumerable offices which others cannot 
 render. He is always freshly dressed, strong 
 voiced, full of cheer. He knows when dis- 
 couragement and loneliness are causing deeper 
 wounds than bullet gash. He knows when 
 the strong natured man yearns for the kiss 
 and caress as much as a child in arms, and 
 gives such gracious benediction with ready 
 tenderness. 
 
 He is absolutely fearless, going amid con- 
 tagion from which others shrink, with scarcely 
 a thought, because he "felt to do so." 
 
 This boyish confession to his mother reveals 
 much: "Mother, I have real pride in telling 
 you that I have the consciousness of saving 
 quite a number of lives by keeping the men 
 from giving up, and being a good deal with 
 them. The men say it is so, and the doctors 
 say it is so, and I will candidly confess I can 
 see it is true, though I say it myself. I 
 know you will like to hear it, mother, so I tell 
 you." 
 
 The physical perfection of Walt Whitman 
 was always remarked by those who saw him 
 prior to this hospital experience. Thereafter, 
 while the outline and general bearing always 
 
A Glimpse of the Man 1 1 
 
 gave the impression of a fine physique, he was 
 in reality partially paralyzed and much of an 
 invalid. 
 
 So large a part of Whitman philosophy had 
 centered in a glorification of humanity as an 
 incarnation of strength and power that it was 
 peculiarly hard that he should have lost his 
 physical robustness. In spite of this and in 
 spite of poverty also, the man did not lose in 
 poise or sweetness of spirit. 
 
 "Specimen Days" was written during the 
 pressure of these misfortunes. 
 
 Burke says of this: "It is the sanest and 
 sweetest of books, the brightest and halest 
 diary of an invalid ever written." Up to the 
 last his courage and charity never wavered. 
 
 He was as pleased as a child over any word 
 which indicated appreciation of his work, but 
 was never troubled or at all affected by cen- 
 sure or misunderstanding. 
 
 He regarded his writing not as literature, 
 but as the expression of a religion. It was a 
 "cause" to him, and all that indicated an 
 understanding of his thought rejoiced him as 
 an advancement of this cause. 
 
 Friends came slowly. Emerson, however, 
 welcomed the new writer at the outset with 
 full appreciation. 
 
12 Walt Whitman 
 
 "Americans may now return from Europe," 
 he said, ' ' for unto us a man is born. ' ' 
 
 In England appreciation came faster than 
 at home — possibly because England expects 
 the outlandish from America, and possibly 
 because editions were published there which 
 omitted the extreme forms of Whitman's 
 realism. 
 
 Among his ardent admirers have been some 
 of the most striking figures in modern times. 
 Each year adds to the number of those who 
 regard themselves as disciples of the Whitman 
 gospel. This band includes most of the 
 ardent young workers in American art, litera- 
 ture, and reform. Among the older and more 
 mature admirers are John Ad^ington Symonds, 
 of England, and John Burroughs, of America. 
 One a scholar of most classic mold — an author- 
 ity in the literature of half a score of lan- 
 guages; the other pre-eminently a nature 
 lover and artist, a scientist in the realm of 
 "whatsoever things are lovely." 
 
 Professor Symonds confesses that Whitman 
 rescued him from the dry rot of scholastic 
 dilettantism and negative skepticism, and 
 brought him in touch with humanity and 
 thrilled him with cosmic enthusiasm. "Leaves 
 of Grass," he said, influenced him more than 
 
A Glimpse of the Man 13 
 
 any book except the Bible — more than Plato ; 
 more than Goethe. 
 
 "Speaking about Whitman is like speaking 
 about the universe," Mr. Symonds affirms, 
 referring to the vastness of his scope and the 
 mystery and exhaustlessness of his message. 
 
 What is more remarkable, Mr. Symonds, 
 while deprecating some elements in Whitman's 
 style, stakes his reputation as a literary critic 
 upon the genuine poetical quality of most of 
 this poet's work. 
 
 John Burroughs's study of Whitman is a 
 poem in itself, and leaves no doubt that the 
 critic is a poet, whether Whitman is one or not. 
 
 He regards Whitman as a prototype of a 
 new order in literature and in human dynam- 
 ics — a prophet of a new religious outlook, 
 akin to cosmic forces. "I believe," he says, 
 "that Whitman supplies in fuller measure 
 that pristine element, something akin to the 
 unbreathed air of mountain and shore, which 
 makes the arterial blood of poetry and lit- 
 erature, than any other modern writer." 
 Burroughs asserts also that there is "a rapidly 
 growing circle of those who are beginning to 
 turn to Whitman as the most imposing and 
 significant figure in our literary annals." 
 
 The present time is marked by a new out- 
 
14 Walt Whitman 
 
 reaching in sympathy and understanding. 
 To this generation then, whatever its verdict 
 upon the art of Whitman, his spirit and mess- 
 age will appeal with ever increasing force. 
 ,, -Here is found that reverence for one's own 
 nature which magnifies its divinity and unlim- 
 ited potency. Here is that conscious oneness 
 with the All of Things — the cosmic selfhood 
 which is the blessedness of all religions, but 
 the peculiar heritage of the modern, science- 
 taught faith. Here is the confident assur- 
 ance of the eternal identity of the self in an 
 enlarging immortality. Here is patriotism, 
 made at one with all radiant ideals of human 
 unity and evolving harmony. 
 
 In these poems is such a conception of 
 democracy as only the Christ-like lovers of 
 "these my brethren, even these least" can 
 understand. In them we find the larger 
 womanhood struck out in magnificent out- 
 lines — a challenge to undreamed power and 
 strength. 
 
 Here we find manhood claiming its own 
 in tenderness and gentle sympathy as well as 
 in potency and might. Wider sympathies 
 are here. The past is never spurned. Irony 
 has no place. All has come by the gracious 
 privilege of blunder and half success. 
 
A Glimpse of the Man 15 
 
 Even evil is given its beatitude in the all- 
 inclusive sympathies of this world lover. 
 
 Outer nature, of tree and bird call, as well 
 as in star sweep and earthquake, are made 
 part and parcel of the one beauty and order 
 which man incarnates. 
 
 In these aspects we shall study these poems 
 of the poet of the wider self. 
 
The Copious Personal Self 
 
II. — The Copious Persona] Self 
 
 I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, 
 spiritual, bold. 
 
 Absurd egotism seemed to early critics of 
 Whitman's poems to mark all of his work. 
 
 To have an author give his own ji prne to his 
 chief poem and have the personal pro noun the 
 chief character on e very page ^ whateypi ^ the 
 title of the poem, was something new and too 
 absurd for patience, it was thought. 
 
 This is a feature of his general method and 
 outlook which the student of his poems must 
 master at the outset or find little that is worth 
 while. 
 
 Whitman was possessed with the fact of 
 ma n's divinity . 
 
 So much is said upon this subject in these 
 latter days, that humanity's divinity is some- 
 thing of a truism, little as its full significance 
 is generally realized. Forty years ago it was 
 rarely admitted, even as a theory. Whitman 
 accepted this as a truth, pondered over it, 
 ~5elignted m it, became intox icated with its 
 won drous and dynamic impor t. 
 19 
 
20 Walt Whitman 
 
 He, then, was an out-cropping of the Deity. 
 He was a part of divine power. His nature 
 was a test and revelation of infinite nature. 
 All the mystery and beauty of experience as 
 it came aroused in him the ardor and devo- 
 tion of religious abandon. 
 
 B ut each human being equally inc arnates 
 the supreme life of all. No one then can be 
 commonplace. Each is an object of adoration 
 and reverence. All that is great or good or 
 heroic or wise in one is the birthright and final 
 attainment of each. Yea, more than the high- 
 est has guessed is the lowest sometime to 
 attain. 
 
 Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the 
 
 center figure of all 
 From the head of the center figure spreading a nimbus 
 
 of gold-colored light, 
 But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without 
 
 its nimbus of gold-colored light. 
 From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman 
 
 it streams, efiEulgently flowing forever. 
 
 Why should I wish to see God better than this day? 
 I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four. 
 In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my 
 
 own face in the glass. 
 And nothing — not God — is greater to one than one's 
 
 self is. 
 
 All the records of Zeus and Odin, of Brahma 
 or Buddha do not bring humility to him. 
 
The Copious Personal Self 1 1 
 
 Whatever mankind has known or imagined 
 of divine achievement must be simply a token 
 of what may be for all. 
 
 Accepting the rough, deific sketches to fill out bet- 
 ter in myself — bestowing them freely on each man or 
 woman I see. 
 
 After picturing tenderly countless exhi- 
 bitions of heroism and nobleness he affirms : 
 
 These become mine and me every one — and they 
 are but little. I become as much more as I like. 
 
 This claim of unity with all does not stop 
 with claiming the highest. 
 
 I become any presence or truth of humanity here, 
 
 See myself in prison shaped like another man. 
 
 And feel the dull unintermitted pain. 
 
 Not a youngster is taken for larceny, but I go up, too, 
 
 and am tried and sentenced. 
 Askers embody themselves in me, and I am embodied 
 
 in them, 
 I project my hat, sit shamefaced and beg. 
 
 In his own person he "intercedes for every 
 person born. " He would have all these affirm 
 with him, 
 
 I chant the chant of dilation and pride, ^ 
 
 We have had ducking and deprecating about enough, 
 I show that size is only development. 
 Have you outstripped the rest? Are you the president? 
 It is a trifle — they will more than arrive there every one 
 and still pass on. 
 
22 Walt Whitman 
 
 The self-reliance urged by Emerson is ful- 
 filled by Whitman in startling literalness. 
 
 He believes in his own message with un- 
 swerving assurance, and does not shift from 
 what he feels is his own peculiar path, even 
 when Emerson himself urges a modified form. 
 
 I know that I am august, 
 
 I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be under- 
 stood, 
 
 I see that the elementary laws never apologize ; 
 
 I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant -my 
 house by, after all. 
 
 This self-confidence he yearns to make each 
 one of all the race feel each for himself. 
 
 O, the joys of a manly selfhood! 
 
 Personality — to be servile to none — to defer to none — 
 
 not to any tyrant, known or unknown. 
 To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, 
 To look with a calm gaze, or with a flashing eye, 
 To speak with a full voice out of a broad chest, 
 To confront with your personality all the other per- 
 sonalities of the earth. 
 
 The poem, "To You, Whoever You Are," 
 is an epitome of this and much besides in the 
 peculiar burden of Whitman to his kind. Its 
 message is to each one, especially to the man 
 ^or woman who feels alone, uncounted, useless. 
 In it he appeals with personal passion to each 
 uncounted person in the concrete. They have 
 
The Copious Personal Self 23 
 
 been lost to themselves in the rush of affairs, 
 but he looks through to the soul and finds the _ 
 real man or woman. While others do not 
 understand he will understand. While others 
 find imperfections he will see only the perfect. 
 
 I only am he who places over you no master, owner, 
 better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in 
 yourself — 
 
 O, I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! 
 
 You have not known what you are. 
 
 He assures them that no glory or power 
 anywhere that is not for this one person who- 
 ever he may be whom he addresses. 
 
 Every endowment, every virtue, all the 
 beauty, pluck, endurance of any is tallied in 
 this imaginary average one over whom he 
 yearns. 
 
 Whoever you are! claim your own at all hazards! 
 
 Under any and all conditions if you assert 
 yourself, all hindrances will slip away and 
 through whatever bogs of disposition or igno- 
 rance "what you are picks its way." 
 
 The quality of life is as important as the 
 courage and vehemence with which it is 
 asserted. 
 
 "Copious" and spiritual it must be — large 
 of spirit — ^wide as all sympathies can make it, 
 
M Walt Whitman 
 
 electric at every pore with the sensitive thrills 
 that unite to all nature, all humankind. 
 
 Tender as he is of all men, even the dullest 
 and the most shallow, he yet challenges them 
 to arouse out of such death in life and learn 
 to live in real things. 
 
 He finds many walking about with the dimes 
 of death on the eyelids, liberally spooning the 
 brains to feed the greed of the belly ; Working 
 with the trappings of life, never with the 
 reality. ^ 
 
 Tickets buying, taking, selling, and then to the feast never 
 once going. 
 
 All this torpid poverty to the best in life 
 need not be. Each may claim whatever he is 
 ready to appropriate. 
 
 I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her 
 
 who shall be complete! 
 I swear the earth remains broken and jagged only to him 
 
 or her who remains broken and jagged. 
 
 The poorest in dollars may by richness of 
 feeling take possession of more than the 
 "ticket-selling" millionaire knows is in exist- 
 ence. "For you, pocketless of a dime, may 
 purchase the pick of the universe." 
 
 This fullness of life Hes in freedom from the 
 bonds of convention, fear, self-distrust, and 
 
The Copious Personal Self 25 
 
 through entering into the love and joy open 
 to all. 
 
 Freedom is the condition of all real life; 
 love and joy, the substance of that life when 
 it is found. -- 
 
 "Whoever walks a furlong without sym- 
 pathy walks to his own funeral, dressed in his 
 own shroud." Sympathy, without pity — the 
 sympathy of imaginative oneness of life — 
 the sympathy that becomes all men under all 
 circumstances — this is the enlarging life of love. 
 
 Such sympathy swallows up even the nobler 
 bondage of duty. For to the nature alive to 
 the living selves of others, duty gives place to 
 glad spontaneity. 
 
 What others give as duties, I give as living impulses; 
 (Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?) 
 
 "A Song of Joys" fairly splashes in an 
 ocean of delights, and yet all this exultation 
 is in the commonest of the common life ex- 
 periences. He enters into the life of all kinds 
 of persons : the fisher and the boatman, delight- 
 ing in the freedom and freshness of their work, 
 its fragrance, and its spur; the engineer's pride 
 and delight in the power he controls and the 
 swiftness he secures; the horseman, the fire- 
 man, even the "strong brawned fighter" — the 
 
i6 Walt Whitman 
 
 pleasures of each are embraced in full appreci- 
 ation. 
 
 "" All over the continent the poet's imagina-- 
 tion carries him, seeking the delights of inland 
 lake and stream, of the forests and mountains. 
 The farmer, the miner, soldier, the mother, 
 the child — the peculiar charm in the experience 
 of each is caught and held with skillful touch. 
 
 And among all none is more delicious than 
 "the joy of that vast elemental sympathy 
 which only the human soul is capable of gener- 
 ating and emitting in steady and limitless 
 floods," or the ripe joy of "my soul leaning 
 poised on itself" — the soul which has caught 
 the sense of supremacy over circumstances and 
 calamities. ^ 
 
 Whitman everywhere expresses this poise 
 which comes from unlimited self-confidence 
 and appreciation balanced by an equal regard 
 for the potential self of every one else. 
 
 There need be no fear of an egotism along 
 whose whole length runs sympathy and belief 
 in mankind. Moreover, an egotism which 
 yields fullness of joy is thereby proven to be 
 off the level of petty selfhood on the plane of 
 the universal and true. 
 
 The human distinction above all else is 
 power to grow, on and on, in mind and soul 
 
The Copious Personal Self 27 
 
 and will. The climax of one vision of attain- 
 ment when reached proves only the stepping- 
 stone to new ranges beyond. 
 
 There is perfection for other orders in 
 nature, but for man, infinite reach and potency. 
 
 This truth is one of the dynamic forces in 
 the poems of Robert Browning; it is equally 
 an all-pervading atmosphere in Whitman. 
 
 I launch all men and women forward with me into 
 the Unknown. 
 
 Each must travel for himself into this un- 
 known. His hand points to "landscapes of 
 continents" and to them leads "a plain coun- 
 try road." "There is no stoppage and never 
 can be stoppage. ' ' 
 
 There is a thrill inexpressible in the bugle 
 call he gives for this journey on into unmeas- 
 ured accomplishment. 
 
 He lets go the past and proceeds to "fill the 
 next fold of the future." All the past of the 
 universe and of men is absorbed into the life of 
 each, and in each is the promise of all to come. 
 
 This day, before dawn, I ascended a hill and looked 
 at the crowded heaven, and I said to my spirit. When we 
 become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and 
 knowledge of everything in them, shall we be filled and 
 satisfied then? 
 
 And my spirit said No, we level that lift, to pass and 
 continue beyond. 
 
28 Walt Whitman 
 
 Could anything more graphically and awe- 
 somely picture the challenge which evolution 
 throws to humanity? Grow, enlarge, it says, 
 be and become in unresting, purposeful prog- 
 ress, or you go the way of the extinct species. 
 The future — immortality — belongs to him who 
 can triumph in new attempts unendingly. 
 
 After me, vista! 
 O, I see that life is not short, but immeasurably long, 
 I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early 
 
 riser, a gymnast, a steady grower, 
 Every hour the semen of centuries — and still of cen- 
 turies. 
 
The Cosmic Self 
 
III.— The Cosmic Self 
 
 For I believed the poets. It is they 
 Who utter wisdom from the central deep, 
 And, listening to the inner flow of things. 
 Speak to the Ages out of Eternity. 
 
 Lowell in this voices a striking fact. The 
 poets have been the prophets. They have, 
 by diving deep into inmost principles, been 
 able to see the essential meanings and purport 
 before the fact-searching scientists could ascer- 
 tain the truths coming into view, and genera- 
 tions before the popular mind could take 
 hold upon their value. 
 
 Goethe, though his specific scientific work 
 was almost worthless, outlined the general 
 theory of evolution with a master's perspec- 
 tive. The mastery was, however, that of the 
 poet, not of the scientist. Browning, in 
 "Paracelsus," published in 183 1, drew with 
 a true artist's stroke the vast picture of evo- 
 lutionary progress with a symmetry and com- 
 pleteness that only our own decade has verified 
 in definite, classified fact. 
 
 The readjustment of conceptions of man and 
 religion to new knowledge of the universe has 
 31 
 
32 Walt Whitman 
 
 always been difficult. The old theory which 
 made the earth the center of all things was 
 deeply rooted in popular conceptions, and it 
 required a painful upheaval to make the 
 Copernican theory fit into theological and 
 poetical ideals. 
 
 The evolutionary theory was even more 
 troublesome to assimilate. It has required 
 half a century to make even a beginning 
 toward that end, while any full appreciation 
 of the inspiring import of the new outlook is 
 still far in the future. 
 
 Walt Whitman will appeal strongly to the 
 coming generations in the new century, for 
 they will have entered fully into the pregnant 
 truths of nineteenth-century science. 
 
 He does not represent, with Tennyson, the 
 transition struggle with the' doubts suggested 
 by the revolutions in cosmic knowledge. He 
 does not with Browning force himself from his 
 unshaken citadel of faith to search conscien- 
 tiously for the dark skepticism which attacks 
 other less fortified believers. 
 
 He has taken possession of the whole king- 
 dom of modern truth, and is oblivious to any 
 other land except as the home of observed life 
 to be appreciated tenderly for the evolving 
 beauty within it. 
 
The Cosmic Self 2i2 
 
 It is truly puzzling to tell how he gained his 
 grasp of evolutionary conceptions. Darwin 
 did not publish the "Origin of Species" until 
 1859. Spencer's first elaboration of any phase 
 of his doctrine was published in the same year 
 in which "Leaves of Grass" appeared. In 
 1852 Spencer had issued a general, statementj 
 but it seems hardly credible that Whitman 
 could have come in contact with so obscure a 
 book. 
 
 , Nevertheless, had he been fully cognizant of 
 every scientific fact and theory discovered or 
 projected up to the moment of publication, 
 his work would be quite as marvelous, so com- 
 pletely has the evolutionary universe become 
 absorbed into his unconscious thought. 
 
 He is always part of an eternal process; 
 always the product of the ages; always the 
 result of eternal beginnings ; always the chan- 
 nel for a limitless future. 
 
 I am an acme of things accomplished and an encloser of 
 things to be. 
 
 My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stars, 
 
 On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches be- 
 tween the steps, 
 
 All below duly traveled, and still I mount and mount. 
 
 In 1874 Tyndall startled even the friends of 
 general evolution by announcing that all things 
 
34 Walt Whitman 
 
 have come to be from the potent life of matter 
 itself. 
 
 All that exists of form or thought or emo- 
 tion was originally involved in the pregnant 
 heart of the original star mist, he affirmed. 
 Since then, theologians, as well as philoso- 
 phers, have come to see that this unques- 
 tioned truth is full of beauty and divine sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 Twenty years earlier than Tyndall's Belfast 
 address, when any respect for matter was 
 foreign to even scholarly thought, Whitman 
 sprang with joyous unconsciousness into the 
 unfamiliar current. 
 
 Afar down I see the huge first nothing — I know I was 
 
 even there; 
 I waited unseen and always and slept through the leth- 
 argic mist, 
 And took my time and took no hurt from the fetid 
 
 carbon. 
 Long I was hugged close — long and long, 
 Immense have been the preparations for me, 
 Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me. 
 
 Before I was bom out of my mother, generations guided 
 me, 
 
 My embryo has never been torpid — nothing could over- 
 lay it. 
 
 For it the nebula cohered to an orb; 
 
 The long, slow strata piled to rest it on; 
 
 Vast vegetables gave it sustenance; 
 
The Cosmic Self 35 
 
 Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and 
 
 deposited it with care; 
 All forces have been steadily employed to complete and 
 
 delight me; 
 Now I stand on this spot with my Soul. 
 
 There is in Whitman the fullest acceptance 
 of science and satisfaction in "its word of 
 reality. ' ' But he does not wait apologetically 
 until science can tell him the full measure of 
 truth. 
 
 The scientists do an important service in an 
 important realm, but they do not exhaust 
 truth nor compass the whole of reality. 
 
 Gentlemen, I receive you, and attach and clasp hands 
 with you. 
 
 The facts are useful and real — they are not my dwell- 
 ing — I enter by them to an area of the dwelling. 
 
 His own dwelling is in life itself, not the 
 properties and qualities — the external details 
 with which science must deal. 
 
 The words of poems are the tuft and final applause of 
 science. 
 
 After the Copernican theory was estab- 
 lished, it was hard to adjust man's dignity to 
 his place on a little speck in the boundless 
 ocean of space. 
 
 The doctrine of evolution has in the same 
 way cowed the spirit of many and made them 
 
3^ Walt Whitman 
 
 feel veritable "worms of the dust" with no 
 suggestion from theology. 
 
 There is no such transitional and forced 
 humility in this poet. He is always conscious 
 of the immensity of things, but the more 
 huge the universe the more uncompassed he 
 sees the nature of man. 
 
 I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled 
 
 systems, 
 And all I see, multiplied as high as I can cipher, edge 
 
 but the rim of the farther systems. 
 My sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels, 
 And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest 
 
 inside them. 
 
 This vastness does not overawe the poet. 
 
 I know I have the best of time and space, and was never 
 measured, and never can be measured. 
 
 Sure as the earth swims thro' the heavens, does every 
 one of its objects pass into spiritual results. 
 
 Whoever you are! 
 
 The divine ship sails the divine sea for you! 
 
 Whoever you are! You are he or she for whom the earth 
 
 is solid and liquid. 
 You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in 
 
 the sky. 
 
 I will confront these shows of the day and night! 
 
 I will know if I am to be less than they! 
 
 I will see if I am not as majestic as they! 
 
 I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they! 
 
 I will see if I am to be less generous than they! 
 
The Cosmic Self 37 
 
 There is no department of thought in which 
 the evolutionary conception is more penetrat- 
 ing and vivifying than in history. 
 
 To the true historical student there is a vital 
 sense of law and growth — a boundless sweep 
 of cause and effect which is quite as controll- 
 ing as that felt in physical science. 
 
 This "feeling for" growth and natural devel- 
 opment in the life of humanity is of far-reach- 
 ing effect. It gives birth to understanding of 
 others, to sympathy and charity, to faith in 
 progress, and patience with slow advance. To 
 Whitman, with his faith in the human meaning 
 of the whole Cosmos and the mighty purport 
 of all mankind, the history of human develop- 
 ment is of supreme significance. 
 
 Think of the past. 
 
 I warn you that in a little while, others will find their 
 
 past in you and your times! 
 The race is never separated — nor man nor woman 
 
 escapes, 
 All is inextricable — things, spirits, nature, nations, you 
 
 too — from precedents you came. 
 
 But even history cannot be celebrated except 
 as a past which has entered into the present. 
 Social evolution is full of interest, but is seen 
 always as a part of that marvelous composite 
 which goes to make up you and me. 
 
38 Walt Whitman 
 
 I was looking a long while for the history of the past — 
 
 And now I have found it. 
 
 It is in the present — it is this earth to-day, 
 
 It is the life of one man or one woman to-day, the aver- 
 age man of to-day; 
 
 It is languages, social custom, literatures, arts, 
 
 It is the broad show of artificial things; ships, machinery, 
 politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the in- 
 terchange of nations. 
 
 All for the average man of to-day. 
 
 This, then, is the secret of Whitman's mag- 
 nificent respect for each individual human 
 being. He sees him as the incarnation and 
 interpretation of the all of things. He sees 
 each soul as the heir to all the wonder and 
 might of nature and the product of all the 
 ;,ages of material and social progress. "The 
 majesty and beauty of the world are latent in 
 'any iota of the world." 
 
 In his thought, which is the thought sup- 
 ported by all truth, the human soul may know 
 its own life enlarged to the limitless limits of 
 the infinite — wide as creation — a "Cosmos." 
 The unity of all and the sanity and blessedness 
 «of all is Whitman's theism. This is his faith 
 in God and a radiant, all vivifying faith it is ! 
 
 To him a universe sound and whole to the 
 core is a God-filled universe. 
 
 All his joy in the vast onward sweep of 
 
The Cosmic Self i^^ 
 
 creation, filled with truth and beauty, is adora- 
 tion of deity. He is so far beyond the "grin 
 and bear it" attitude of many in their accept- 
 ance of the world as science reveals it, that 
 one can scarcely realize that it is the same 
 order of things in which he moves. 
 
 Here is warmth, assurance, the rapt ecstacy 
 of the cloistered devotee, and all before the 
 universe according to Kepler and Darwin ! 
 
 "Who has made hymns fit for the earth? 
 For I am mad with devouring ecstacy to make 
 hymns for the whole earth. ' ' 
 
 You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing. 
 Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness, 
 Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, 
 Natural life of me, faithfully praising things. 
 Corroborating forever the triumph of things. 
 
 I say Nature continues — Glory continues. 
 
 I praise with electric voice. 
 
 For I do not see one imperfection in the universe. 
 
 setting Sun! 
 
 1 still warble unto you unmitigated adoration! 
 
The Eternal Self 
 
IV.— The Eternal Self 
 
 I do not know what is untried and afterward, 
 But I know it is sure, alive, sufficient. 
 
 Whitman is a rationalist in complete degree. 
 Authority appeals to him not at all. He is 
 unconscious that there is a "thus saith" any- 
 where in heaven above or earth beneath. And 
 yet his assurance of personal immortality is so 
 absolute that he announces the tenets of this 
 faith with the oracular dictum of prophet and 
 priest. 
 
 He does not presume to specify and analyze 
 the details of future existence. He does not 
 mark off corner lots in the new Jerusalem and 
 guarantee the lay of land. He contents him- 
 self with general principles which yet cover all 
 that is essentially of worth. -^ 
 
 Life is always seen by him with death at its 
 side; but not as a ghastly skeleton — always as 
 a promise and a benediction. Death to him 
 means infinite potency — the guarantee of eter- 
 nal meaning for all the events and realities of 
 earth. 
 
 43 
 
44 Walt Whitman 
 
 I do not know what follows the death of my body, 
 But I know that whatever it is, it is best for me, 
 And I know well that w:hatever is really me shall live 
 just as much as before. 
 
 In the light of the somber coloring always 
 given to death in the thought of the genera- 
 tions, it is startling to note how Whitman 
 draws its figure in the most brilliant colors 
 and in his most sunny pictures. 
 
 In "A Songof Joys" hesingsapeanto"the 
 beautiful touch of death" between a carol to the 
 trees and another to the delights, of the" splash 
 in the water" and the "race along the shore." 
 
 In the exquisite stanzas beginning "Splendor 
 of the falling day, floating and filling me, ' ' in 
 which he carols to the sun and "throbs to the 
 brain and beauty of the earth" he rejoices 
 "in the superb vistas of death." In another, 
 celebrating fruitage, he first of all pays hom- 
 age to ' ' death (the life greater), ' ' and lets fol- 
 low upon it "seeds dropping into the ground — 
 birth." 
 
 To turn from death as it is found in general 
 literature to the death everywhere present in 
 Whitman's poems is like facing suddenly west- 
 ward at the time of sunset glory after having 
 accustomed one's eyes to the pensive shades 
 of the eastward heavens. 
 
The Eternal Self 45 
 
 This triumphant assurance is not based upon 
 elaborate arguments. All of life, all of growth, 
 all of mystery, all of meaning, is an argument 
 to him. If others cannot find it in these he 
 cannot convince. 
 
 I hear you whispering there, O stars of heaven, 
 
 O suns! O grass of graves! O perpetual transfers and 
 
 promotions. 
 If you do not say anything, how can I say anything? 
 
 The assurance within him is inexpressible; 
 no dictionary utterance or symbol can give it 
 voice, but 
 
 Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on. 
 To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes 
 
 me. 
 Do you see, O my brothers and sisters? 
 It is not chaos or death — it is form — union, plan — 
 It is eternal life — it is happiness. 
 
 If one confronts Whitman with the difficul- 
 ties attendant upon immortality, asserting that 
 life apart from the physical bo8y is hard to 
 understand and mysterious, he answers with 
 the inexplicable mystery of life. Life is mysti- 
 cal, but it is real. Surely death may lead to 
 reality quite as well. There is joy and pur- 
 port in life in spite of mystery and miracle; 
 shall there not be equal joy and purport in 
 death? 
 
4-6 Walt Whitman 
 
 Is it wonderful that I should be immortal, as every one is 
 
 immortal? 
 I know it is wonderful — but 
 Come! I should like to hear you tell me what there is in 
 
 yourself that is not just as wonderful. 
 And I should like to hear the name of anything between 
 
 First-Day morning and Seventh-Day night 
 That is not just as wonderful. 
 
 To him the unthinkable thing would be that 
 man could have come into being with all the 
 marvelous, mighty past incarnated in his 
 nature, capable of living in all, enjoying all, 
 entering into the vast eternal stretch of things, 
 and then be snuffed out just when he is begin- 
 ning to give out the infinite potency within 
 him. 
 
 No one who appreciates the human soul, as 
 we have previously seen that Whitman does, 
 could fail to have unlimited confidence in its 
 permanence and eternal meaning. 
 -~ To him, immortality is never the misty, 
 ocean-absorbed conception of many who have 
 been nursed upon eastern nirvana or western 
 conservation of energy notions. 
 
 Eternal life to Whitman is the vigorous per- 
 sonal existence of a clear-cut identity. 
 
 You are not thrown to the winds — you gather certainly 
 
 and safely around yourself, 
 Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, forever and ever! 
 
The Eternal Self 47 
 
 The soul, as Whitman knows it to be, is its 
 own answer to all doubts. Once in existence, 
 eternity is its destiny. 
 
 It is enough, O soul, 
 O soul, we have positively appeared — that is enough. 
 
 The, love of life and all things mundane is 
 so strong in this poet that he is almost jeal- 
 ously fearful that he will seem to be deprecia- 
 ting this life when rejoicing in the promise of 
 further existence. He knows he shall visit 
 the stars, that present experiences will prove 
 only one out of myriad experiences, but he 
 expects to find nowhere anything 
 
 More majestic and beautiful than I have already found 
 on the earth. 
 
 He has no doubt but the new house he 
 will inhabit will be good, but he is quite in 
 love with the studs and rafters of this one, 
 which has grown part of him. 
 
 However, in the poem, "Night on the 
 Prairies," he reconsiders his hesitancy to 
 affirm greater things to come. 
 
 In the open, looking at the stars, it all 
 bursts upon him anew and he sees how infinite 
 and inconceivable are the experiences yet 
 ahead. 
 
48 Walt Whitman 
 
 Now I absorb immortality and peace. 
 I admire death and test propositions. 
 I was thinking the day most splendid till I saw what the 
 
 not-day exhibited, 
 I was thinking this globe enough, till there trembled 
 
 upon me myriads of other globes, 
 O, how plainly I see now that life cannot exhibit all to 
 
 me — as the day cannot, 
 O, I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by 
 
 death. 
 
 The body occupies a position of dignity and 
 significance in Whitman's philosophy. 
 
 Without the material body he feels the per- 
 sonal identity could never have reached perfec- 
 tion. The soul receives "identity through 
 materials," the "temporary use of materials 
 for identity's sake" are expressions character- 
 istic of many. 
 
 Physical birth, he says, "is to identify you. 
 It is hot that you should be undecided, but 
 decided." 
 
 It is not strange, then, that he believes 
 strongly in a spiritual body which is now pres- 
 ent in the physical form and which will con- 
 tinue to give the promoted soul a habitation 
 and identity. 
 
 I do not doubt that from under the feet and beside the 
 hands and face I am cognizant of, are now looking 
 faces I am not cognizant of — calm and actual faces. 
 
The Eternal Self 49 
 
 I do not doubt that interiors have their interiors and 
 exteriors have their exteriors — and that the eye- 
 sight has another eyesight, and the hearing an- 
 other hearing, and the voice another voice. 
 
 O, what is proved to me this day beyond cavil, that it 
 is not my material eyes which finally see 
 
 Nor my material body which finally lives, walks, laughs, 
 embraces, procreates. 
 
 After speaking of the discharge of his 
 "voided body" at death, he suggests: 
 My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres. 
 
 The future toward which Whitman's stimu- 
 lating bugle is calling us is a virile, purposeful 
 one. There is no inane, negative monotony 
 in his thought, nor cowardly quiescence. 
 
 Muscle and pluck forever! 
 
 What invigorates life invigorates death. 
 
 And the dead advance as much as the living advance. 
 
 And the future is no more uncertain than the present. 
 
 In "Song of Prudence" is as noble an asser- 
 tion of true value as could be penned. The 
 prudence which has to do with getting and 
 having, with appearance and indirection — 
 drops quietly aside "from the prudence which 
 suits immortality," "charity and personal 
 force are the only investments worth any- 
 thing." 
 
 No specification is necessary; all that a male or 
 female does, that is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so 
 
so Walt Whitman 
 
 much profit to him or her, in the unshakable order 
 of the universe, and through the whole scope of it 
 forever. 
 
 It is only rarely that there is in these poems 
 any recognition that any one can or does 
 doubt. When there is, the suggestion is tossed 
 aside with ironical denial. 
 Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, 
 
 I should die now; 
 Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well suited 
 
 toward annihilation? 
 
 Again he affirms, as if in half sarcastic refer- 
 ence to the attitude of others, that the pur- 
 port of us here is "not a speculation, or a 
 bonmot, or reconnaissance' ' that may by good 
 luck turn out well or may be retracted under 
 certain contingencies. 
 
 The secret of this absorbing, all-conquering 
 confidence lies in his confidence in the all of 
 things — in the divine inherency — in God. 
 
 There is little here which even suggests a 
 hard and fast plan by an outside, throne-occu- 
 pying deity — but everything to show how the 
 poet's sense of a God-filled Cosmos permeates 
 his every other ideal and belief. 
 
 In this faith in an All Good he cannot leave 
 out any atom of humanity from the ultimate 
 triumph. 
 y Immortality is for the least as for the great- 
 
The Eternal Self 51 
 
 est. "Each is considered. Not a single one 
 can it fail" — not the young man, or young 
 woman. 
 
 Not the little child that peeped in at the door, and 
 then drew back, and was never seen again, nor the old 
 man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with 
 bitterness worse than gall. 
 
 . . . Not the least wisp that is known. 
 
 And all of "these least" must arrive at the 
 highest sometime. A few giant souls will not 
 content Walt Whitman, all must come some- 
 time to the same estate. ' ' We must have the 
 indestructible breed of the best, regardless of 
 time." 
 
 A faith in immortality grounded in a uni- 
 verse pure gold all through, reinforced by un- 
 questioned and valiant loyalty to human nature 
 in every aspect, rests upon bedrock. With 
 this foundation we cannot wonder at the jubi- 
 lant affirmation closing the poem, "To Think 
 of Time, ' ' 
 
 I swear I think there is nothing but immortality! 
 
 That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous 
 
 float is for it, and the cohering is for it! 
 And all preparation is for it, and identity is for it, and 
 
 life and death are altogether for it. 
 
'Even These Least" 
 
V. — "Even These Least" 
 
 I do not ask who you are — that is not important to me — 
 You can do nothing, and be nothing, but what I will 
 
 enfold you. 
 Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons — brother 
 
 of slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and diseased 
 
 persons. 
 
 Whitman has been the most misunderstood 
 man in literature. With Puritanic self-confi- 
 dence, respectable society decided instanter 
 that it would have none of him. What mercy 
 could one expect who would calmly announce 
 himself as not only the poet of goodness, but 
 the poet of wickedness as well? 
 
 He afifirms of himself all sorts of crime, vice, 
 and contemptible traits, but it is with the same 
 unrelenting readiness with which he asserts his 
 equality with potentates and seers, with saints 
 and gods; and the one attitude no more indi- 
 cates vaunting depravity than the other reveals 
 absurd egotism. 
 
 He is contending for race unity, for the 
 "vast similitude" that interlocks all, and does 
 not flinch when he finds wrong and folly and 
 misery a part of the great whole. 
 55 
 
56 Walt Whitman 
 
 He. accepts the earth as he finds it and is ^ 
 
 bound to see that it is good. 
 
 My gait is no fault-finder's or rejector's gait; 
 I moisten the roots of all that has grown. 
 
 He will not accept anything which all may 
 not possess, even self-imputed virtue. He 
 feels that through him all the "long dumb 
 voices" may find expression. Slaves, prosti- 
 tutes, deformed persons, the diseased and 
 despairing, thieves and dwarfs, all find in him^ 
 the sympathetic interpreter. 
 
 In all the "new thought" atmosphere, noth- 
 ing is really newer than the attitude it is help- 
 ing to secure toward wrong doing. True, it is 
 no newer than the Judean teachings of one 
 who is supposed to be the teacher of Christen- 
 dom, but it is new nevertheless. 
 
 Walt Whitman startles by the unfaltering 
 utterance which he gave two score years ago 
 to a charity, which we are with hesitancy 
 feebly trying for to-day. 
 
 Phariseeism has been a cultivated virtue so 
 long that it takes away one's breath to find a 
 man who thanks the Lord so fervently that he 
 is as other men are, and with studied elabo- 
 ration gives us long categories of his sins, so 
 that we may have no doubt that he knows 
 whereof he speaks! As a matter of fact. 
 
" Even These Least " SI 
 
 everyone who knew Walt Whitman through- 
 out his life believed him to be more nearly 
 clean and noble in all thought and conduct 
 than any but the very few. And yet in his 
 capacity as the representative of each and all 
 he stoutly asserts: 
 
 I own that I have been sly, thievish, mean, a prevari- 
 cator, greedy, derelict; 
 
 And I own that I remain so yet. 
 
 You felons on trial in courts; 
 
 You convicts in prison cells — you sentenced assassins, 
 chained and handcuffed with iron, 
 
 Who am I, that I am not on trial, or in prison? 
 
 Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not 
 chained with iron, or my ankles with iron? 
 
 This abounding sympathy and freedom from 
 Pharisaic judgment is not based upon any fail- 
 ure to appreciate the distinction between the 
 good and the evil. 
 
 He loves the good with a natural spontane- 
 ity and sees so clearly the rich returns brought 
 by the high, clean life that he can have only a 
 commiserating tenderness for any whose un- 
 fortunate blindness has made them go wrong. 
 
 He no more judges harshly the victim of 
 moral blindness than of bodily disease. The 
 same laws by which insight has finally come to 
 the righteous will lead each stumbling one into 
 clearer light. 
 
58 Walt Whitman 
 
 The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion, 
 he affirms, and the difference lies in no artifi- 
 cial mandate, but is the difference between joy 
 and misery, between sweetness and gall. 
 
 I say what tastes sweet to the most perfect person; that 
 is finally right. 
 
 Two poems, ' ' Kosmos, " or " Gods, ' ' and ' ' A 
 Hand Mirror," are placed side by side in 
 "Leaves of Grass" with no suggestion that 
 they are related to each other. "Gods" pict- 
 ures a full-grown soul, vigorous to be and to 
 do — able to enter into the joys and faiths of all 
 the universe. "A Hand Mirror" holds the 
 glass up to one who has burnt out the gold of 
 
 life. 
 
 Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth. 
 
 The ashes and filth are mirrored with a hor- 
 rible realism, closing with no sermon, only — 
 Such a result so soon; and from such a beginning! 
 
 This clear-eyed knowledge of the full black- 
 ness of the night of wrong does not make him 
 any the less confident when he urges courage 
 and faith upon its victims. No one can sink 
 so low as to be out of reach of his extended 
 hand and cheery call. 
 
 The mockeries are not you; 
 
 Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk; 
 
 I pursue you where none else has pursued you: 
 
" Even These Least " 59 
 
 The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure com- 
 plexion; if these balk others, they do not balk me; 
 
 The pert apparel, the deformed attitude, drunkenness, 
 greed, premature death; all these I part aside; 
 
 1 track through your windings and turnings; I come 
 upon you where you thought eye should never 
 come upon you. 
 
 Then he assures them that the best the 
 human soul can attain is theirs. 
 
 As for me, I give nothing to anyone, except I give the 
 
 like carefully to you; 
 I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner 
 
 than I sing the glory of you. 
 
 A saving power for these lies in the persons 
 who can see the real man "behind and through" 
 the "greasy and pimpled" exterior. Let a 
 man "of perfect blood" come in contact with 
 the ' ' insulter, the angry person, " he " strangely 
 transmutes them. " " They hardly know them- 
 selves, they are so clean." 
 
 The puzzling "Problem of Evil" is faced by 
 Whitman with no shirking. 
 
 I sit and look out upon the sorrows of the world, and 
 upon all oppression and shame. 
 
 All these — all meanness and agony without end — I sit- 
 ting, look out upon. 
 
 See, hear, and am silent. 
 
 But he promptly reasserts his faith that it 
 will all be right in some way. "Nothing fails 
 its perfect return. ' ' 
 
6o Walt Whitman 
 
 O me, man of slack faith so long! 
 Standing aloof — denying portions so long; 
 Me, with mole's eyes, unrisen to buoyancy and vision — 
 unfree. 
 
 When he sees with full horizon he knows 
 that in an evolving humanity, there must be 
 half development, crude outcroppings. 
 
 He learns to think of the "diseased and 
 despairing, of thieves and dwarfs" as among 
 
 Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion. 
 And of the threads that connect the stars — and of wombs, 
 and of the fatherstuff. 
 
 The character dwarfs are simply later in the 
 process, but all shall "flow and unite." The 
 universe is in order, although part is further 
 advanced than others. The "twisted skull 
 waits, and the watery or rotten blood waits," 
 but all these "far behind are to go on in their 
 turn." 
 
 The atheism or theism of recent times has 
 left the question of origins. The believers 
 and unbelievers may be known, not by their 
 opinion as to how the universe was created, 
 but by their answer to the questions. What 
 kind of a universe is it? Are there rotten 
 places in it? Has the good any eternal, in- 
 trinsic meaning at the heart of things? It is 
 
"Even These Least" 6i 
 
 by this test that Whitman is found among the- 
 most devout and doubt-free theists. He has 
 no faintest question but that all is essentially- 
 sound and sane throughout every atom of the 
 Cosmos. 
 
 There is perfection in final results, if not in 
 details of the process. Wherever there is dis- 
 ease, there is healing. 
 
 Amelioration is one of the earth's words; 
 The earth neither lags nor hastens; 
 It has all attributes, growths, effects — latent in itself from 
 the jump. 
 
 "The purifying chemistry of nature" might 
 well be the title of one of the "Leaves." 
 In this he is, at first, startled by the earth — 
 thinking suddenly of the disease and death 
 which has been buried in it. How can there 
 be health even in the roots of spring? The 
 earth is a veritable mass of horrible decay. 
 
 Yet, behold! ■""'~~"' 
 
 The grass covers the prairies; 
 The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the 
 
 garden; 
 The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward; 
 The apple buds cluster together on the apple branches. 
 The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above 
 
 all those strata of sour dead; 
 What chemistry! 
 That all is clean forever and ever! 
 
62 Walt Whitman 
 
 Facing frankly all appearances, all facts, this 
 prophet-poet sounds exultantly the pean of 
 jubilation: All is good, all is beauty, all is 
 health and sanity. 
 
 I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen, 
 anywhere, at any time, is provided for, in the inherences 
 of things. 
 
The Larger Woman 
 
VI. — The Larger Woman 
 
 Daughters of the Land, did you wait for your poet? 
 
 Anticipate the best women ; 
 
 I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined 
 
 women are to spread through all These States. 
 I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable, 
 
 dauntless, just the same as a boy. 
 
 Whitman's thorough-going modernness and 
 adherence to the laws of nature and freedom 
 seem to have no limitations. In many teach- 
 ers we revel in a progressive outlook until we 
 run full tilt upon some wall of conservatism — 
 some rock of retarded development which 
 checks enthusiasm and puts up the guards of 
 caution. He at times violates our instincts of 
 taste, to many noble sentiments he gives no 
 response, but his shortcomings do not lie in 
 the sterotyped or tradition-bound. 
 
 He may not see all that there is in the 
 world, but what he sees is always real — never 
 the phantom arbitrarily created by custom or 
 popular opinion. 
 
 In his attitude toward woman, Whitman 
 well illustrates his prophetic instinct. Writ- 
 es 
 
66 Walt Whitman 
 
 ing in the middle of the century, he preceded 
 the agitation for woman's educational, indus- 
 trial, and political opportunities. Yet he took 
 all this for granted and leaped past the tran- 
 sitional, halting stages to an ideal of strength, 
 freedom, human achievement, and matronly 
 supremacy such as another century will under- 
 stand better than our own. 
 
 It is not in woman's name that Whitman 
 demands that bars be withdrawn and cages 
 removed. It is in the name of humanity. 
 
 The race of human creatures are destined to 
 match the majesty of the universe. In human- 
 kind, all past evolution finds its culmination — 
 all the cosmic order awaits its fruition. 
 
 The mothers of the race must inaugurate 
 the uplift of the race. 
 
 The women of the race must live out their 
 full portion of this mighty destiny. Sacrifice, 
 dwarfing, and hampered growth are not neces- 
 sary anywhere in the order of things — every 
 life may be lived out to the full — must be so 
 fulfilled, if the child of that life is not to be 
 defrauded. 
 
 In the name of that maternity by which 
 woman's life has been supposed to receive its 
 limitation, the poet proclaims the obliteration 
 of all limits. 
 
The Larger Woman 67 
 
 The following poem gives all the deeper 
 meaning of this time of woman's prophetic 
 beginnings of growth : 
 
 Unfolded out of the folds of the woman man comes un- 
 folded, and is always to come unfolded, 
 
 Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth 
 is to come the superbest man of the earth, 
 
 Unfolded only out of the friendliest woman is to come 
 the friendliest man. 
 
 Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman can a 
 man be form'd of perfect body. 
 
 Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of the woman 
 can come the poems of man. 
 
 Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain come all 
 the folds of the man's brain, duly obedient, 
 
 Unfolded out of the justice of woman all justice is un- 
 folded. 
 
 Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sym- 
 pathy; 
 
 A man is a great thing upon the earth, and through 
 eternity — but every jot of the greatness of man is 
 unfolded out of woman; 
 
 First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be 
 shaped in himself. 
 
 It is inevitable, then, that Whitman should 
 delight, not in feminine, but in great human 
 qualities in woman. 
 
 Her equality with man might better have 
 been taken for granted than frequently reiter- 
 ated in specific terms, as he does, but perhaps 
 he could not be too definite on that point at 
 the time he wrote : 
 
68 Walt Whitman 
 
 I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, 
 And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, 
 And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of 
 men. 
 
 No separated passages can give adequate 
 idea of the fine, vigorous ideal of womanhood 
 which the poet everywhere suggests. Woman 
 is included in every appeal — the double pro- 
 noun is always used. His call to valiant self- 
 assertion is the human call, never the masculine 
 alone. 
 
 The sturdy strength of mind and body he 
 delights in for all. 
 
 Sometimes, however, he gives a special refer- 
 ence to woman's world-wide activity. Among ■ 
 the things he delights in is : 
 
 The athletic American matron speaking in public to 
 crowds of listeners. 
 
 In picturing his ideal city, among many 
 
 suggestions spiritual and political, he speaks 
 
 of this community as one 
 
 Where women walk in public processions in the streets, 
 
 the same as the men. 
 Where they enter the public assembly and take places 
 
 the same as the men, and are appealed to by the 
 
 orators the same as the men. 
 Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands, 
 Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands, 
 Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands, 
 Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands, 
 There the greatest city stands. 
 
The Larger Woman 69 
 
 It is not strange that, with his passion for 
 the organic forces and underlying potencies of 
 things, Whitman should s eewo man as the 
 
 ' mother more often than in any capacity 
 except'Tn'her supreme function as a human 
 entity. 
 
 The romantic s entim ent is wholly lacking iir 
 his~^oems, and there is very little to indicate 
 appreciation oT 'the "sweeter phases of "^mestic 
 sentiment, biTt universal natural ^^ctimis ap- 
 peal to him powerfully. The mother he most 
 
 "olten thinks of, however, is the elderly woman. 
 The years when motherhood means most to 
 woman herself — the years when baby hands 
 press moist fingers upon the pulsing breast, 
 and little feet toddle into strong, young arms — 
 is not often reflected in these poems. 
 
 Perhaps it is because Whitman's own 
 mother was the object of such reverent admi- 
 ration to him, that age and motherhood are 
 framed together in his pictures. 
 
 The old face of the mother of many children! 
 
 Whist! I am fully content. 
 
 Behold a woman! 
 
 She looks out from her paper cap — her face is clearer 
 
 and more beautiful than the sky. 
 She sits in an arm chair under the shaded porch of the 
 
 farm house. 
 The sun just shines on her old white head. 
 
7o Walt Whitman 
 
 Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, 
 
 Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters 
 
 spun it with the distaS and the wheel. 
 The melodious character of the earth, 
 The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go, and does 
 
 not wish to go. 
 . The justified mother of men. 
 
 The "eternal womanly" appeals to this man 
 
 no less because of his universal ideal of "the 
 
 human creature of the mother sex." 
 
 Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman; 
 The creation is womanhood. 
 Have I not said that womanhood involves all? 
 Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than 
 the best womanhood? 
 
 The stanza opening "Her shape arises" pic- 
 tures a womanly presence passing amid gross- 
 ness and crime. She does not go in ignorance 
 and shallow innocence, but with clear-sighted 
 knowledge of all the world holds of evil and 
 temptation. She does not draw away her 
 skirts. She knows the wrong, but "she is 
 none the less considerate or friendly there- 
 fore. ' ' Her mere presence excites the love of 
 these supposedly depraved ones. "She is the 
 best beloved — it is without exception — she has 
 no reason to fear, and she does not fear." 
 All that a lesser woman would shrink from 
 does not offend her. "She is possessed of 
 herself. ' ' 
 
The Larger Woman 71 
 
 She receives them as the laws of nature receive them — 
 
 she is strong, 
 She, too, is a law of nature — there is no law stronger 
 
 than she is. 
 
 The supreme message of Whitman can have 
 no sex limitations. Health and freedom, 
 vigor and courage, these are a challenge to all 
 alike. But since there has been, and still is, 
 more of conventional barriers about women 
 than men, woman peculiarly needs his dis- 
 tinctive spur. In the "Song of the Open 
 Road" one listens to an awe-inspiring, joy- 
 stirring appeal to men and women to live in 
 the real and the spontaneous. 
 
 The road always traveled and by all men is 
 hallowed and beautiful if one learns of it "the 
 profound lesson of reception, neither prefer- 
 ence nor denial," but one must be ready to 
 leave it, when the personal mandate comes, 
 into bypaths or into more far-carrying, new- 
 blazed roads. 
 
 t. 
 
 O highway I travel! O public road! Do you say to me, 
 
 "Do not leave me? " 
 Do you say, " Venture not; if you leave me you are lost? " 
 Do you say, " I am already prepared — I am well-beaten 
 
 and undenied — adhere to me?" 
 O public road! I say back, " I am not afraid to leave 
 
 you — yet I love you." 
 
 This reverence for the past, although he does 
 not hesitate to defy its dictates, is character- 
 
72 Walt Whitman 
 
 istic of Whitman always. Tender of old cus- 
 toms which were needed, reverential of prece- 
 dent and appreciative of established beauty he 
 yet must make his own advance in his own 
 way — 
 
 However sweet these laid-up stores — however conven- 
 ient this dwelling, we cannot remain here, 
 
 However sheltered this port, and however calm these 
 waters, we must not anchor here. 
 
 Then more forcible and alluring, because we 
 know it springs from no shallow undervalua- 
 tion of the old, comes this bugle call to the 
 new: 
 
 AUons! The inducements shall be great to you; 
 
 We will sail pathless and wild seas. 
 
 We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the 
 Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail. 
 
 Allons! With power, liberty, the earth, the elements! 
 
 Health, defiance, gaiety, self-esteem, curiosity; 
 
 Let us go from all formulas! 
 
 Allons! Yet take warning! 
 
 He traveling with me needs the best blood, strews en- 
 durance. 
 
 None may come back to the trial, till he or she bring 
 courage and health. 
 
 Mere newness is not the test of the new 
 paths. The way must lead to real results in 
 character. The soul and its needs must never 
 be forgotten. The test is always here. 
 
The Larger Woman 73 
 
 AUons! After the Great Companions, and to belong to 
 them! 
 
 They, too, are on the road! They are the swift and ma- 
 jestic men! They are the greatest women! 
 
 Of the progress of the souls of men and 
 women along the grand road of the universe, 
 all other progress is the needed emblem and 
 sustenance. 
 
 Forever alive, forever forward, 
 
 Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, bafHed, mad, turbulent, 
 
 feeble, dissatisfied. 
 Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted of men, rejected 
 
 of men. ^ 
 
 They go! They go! I know that they go, but I know not 
 where they go. 
 
 But I know that they go toward the best — toward some- 
 thing great. 
 
The Larger Man 
 
VII. — The Larger Man 
 
 I announce a great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, 
 affectionate, compassionate, fully armed. 
 
 I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spir- 
 itual, bold. 
 
 Not to chisel ornaments. 
 
 But to chisel with free stroke the heads ajid limbs of 
 
 plenteous supreme gods, that The States may 
 
 realize them walking and talking. 
 
 Think of manhood, and you to be a man; 
 Do you count manhood and the sweets of manhood 
 nothing? 
 
 Whitman "promulges" (a favorite word 
 with him) an ideal of manhood no less than of 
 womanhood. Many ideals are so far removed 
 from the practical real that one can recognize 
 no relationship between them. Whitman, 
 however, while the divinest possibilities are 
 not too exalted to have place in his ideal, 
 drives the foundation piles so deep in the solid 
 ground of robust, physical energy and hardy, 
 full-blooded activity that one can believe in 
 the substantial character of any superstructure 
 he cares to erect upon such a foundation. 
 
 He exalts the body and all that suggests its 
 77 
 
78 Walt Whitman 
 
 ' highest vigor. He adores man, the animal, 
 before he does homage to man, the thinker, 
 or man, the spiritual conqueror. 
 
 Primitive roughness is more to him than the 
 veneer of the exquisite dandy. 
 
 Washes and razors for f oof cos — for me freckles and 
 the bristling beard. 
 
 He wants that man should inure himself to 
 "run, leap, swim, wrestle, fight — to stand the 
 heat or cold — to take good aim with a gun — 
 to sail a boat — manage horses — to beget superb 
 children — to speak readily and clearly — to feel 
 at home among common people — to hold 
 his own in terrible positions on land and sea. ' * 
 
 Not for an embroiderer. (There will always be plenty of 
 embroiderers. I welcome them also.) 
 
 But for the fiber of things, and for inherent men and 
 women. 
 
 Browning frequently shows this exquisite 
 realization of health. With Whitman it is 
 fundamental. 
 
 If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred. 
 
 And the glory and sweet of a man, is the token of 
 manhood untainted. 
 
 And in man or woman, a clean, strong, firm-fibered 
 body, is beautiful as the most beautiful face. 
 
 The following is his conception of man as 
 he should be in native qualities : 
 
The Larger Man 79 
 
 His shape arises. 
 
 Arrogant, masculine, naive, rowdyish, 
 
 Laugher, weeper, worker, idler, citizen, countryman, 
 
 Saunterer of woods, stander upon hills, summer swimmer 
 
 in rivers or by the sea. 
 Of pure American breed, of reckless health, his body 
 
 free from taint from top to toe, free forever from 
 
 headache and dyspepsia, clean-breathed. 
 Ample-limbed, a good feeder, weight a hundred and 
 
 eighty pounds, full-blooded, six feet high, forty 
 
 inches around the breast and back. 
 Countenance sun-burnt, bearded, calm, unrefined. 
 Reminder of animals, meeter of savage and gentlemen 
 
 on equal terms. 
 Attitudes lithe and erect, costume free, neck gray and 
 
 open, of slow movement on foot. 
 Passer of his right arm 'round the shoulders of his 
 
 friends, companions of the streets. 
 Persuader always of people to give him their sweetest 
 
 touches, never their meanest. 
 A Manhattanese bred.fond of Brooklyn.fond of Broadway, 
 
 fond of the life of the wharfs and the great ferries. 
 Enterer everywhere, welcomed everywhere, easily under- 
 stood after all. 
 Never offering others, always offering himself. 
 
 Surely when an ideal of high character is 
 grounded upon such sturdy, wholesome manli- 
 ness it will not appear so illusory and unreal 
 as do many visions of perfection. 
 
 Walt Whitman draws the man he seeks as 
 fit for "These States," in magnificent out- 
 line, but even the most exalted traits are filled 
 in with such human shading that we forget 
 
8o Walt Whitman 
 
 that it is an ideal and not any prosaic indi- 
 vidual with whom we daily touch elbows. 
 
 The impression gained by the many eulo- 
 gies of the rough and unrefined would be mis- 
 leading alone. It is the genuineness he insists 
 upon, and loves honest coarseness rather than 
 an artificial coating of insincere polish. 
 
 The refinement which comes from gentle- 
 ness of feeling and spontaneous good will he 
 values supremely. "Behavior" is his favorite 
 word for this natural outshowing of the true 
 man or woman. 
 
 Behavior — fresh, native, copious, each one for himself 
 
 or herself. 
 Nature and the Soul expressed — 
 America and freedom expressed — 
 In it the finest art. 
 
 In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy to have their chance. 
 In it physique, intellect, faith — in it just as much as to 
 
 manage an army or a city, or to write a book — 
 
 perhaps more. 
 The youth, the laboring person, the poor person, rivaling 
 
 all the rest — perhaps outdoing the rest. 
 The effects of the universe no greater than its; 
 For there is nothing in the whole universe that can be 
 
 more effective than a man's or woman's daily 
 
 behavior can be. 
 In any position, in any one of these states. 
 
 There is little in this to help out a catechism 
 upon the rules of etiquette, but a sufficient 
 
The Larger Man 8i 
 
 statement of great principles to found a school 
 of expression — indeed, an entire system of 
 education fit for the unfolding centuries. 
 
 The wider selfhood is the inclusive outline 
 of his conception of human character. 
 
 As we have previously seen, this taking into 
 himself of all things, all men, all experiences, 
 is the key to this poet's characteristic work. 
 He believes it the ground work of all large 
 life. Two poems are specifically an expres- 
 sion of this conviction. 
 
 In the poem "Him All Wait For" or 
 ' ' Song of the Answerer, ' ' more than all other 
 qualities is emphasized this of all-embracing 
 absorption. "Every existence has its idiom," 
 which he translates into his own tongue. All 
 divergences which seem to contradict, "he 
 sees how they join." 
 
 He says indifierently and alike, " How are. you, friend? " 
 
 to the president at his levee, 
 And he says, "Good day, my brother," to Cudge that 
 
 hoes in the sugar field. 
 And both understand him, and know that his speech is 
 
 right. 
 
 Every one, no matter what his occupation, 
 believes he is of the same calling — authors, 
 laborers, sailors, soldiers — each group feels 
 
82 Walt Whitman 
 
 that he belongs to them. All nationalities 
 also claim him as their own — 
 
 The English believe he comes of their English stock. 
 A Jew to the Jew he seems — a Russ-to the Russ — usual 
 and near/removed from none. 
 
 In "Salut au Monde" he travels by electric 
 flights over all the world — one of those "cata- 
 loguing' ' tours to which the casual reader so 
 much objects. He mentions a world full of 
 people in all nations and all times, past, pres- 
 ent, and future — takes them all into his inter- 
 est and sympathy, and lumps all whom he 
 may have overlooked in a specific codicil: 
 
 All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, 
 
 indifferent of place; 
 And you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes 
 
 of the sea! 
 And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me! 
 And you each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but 
 
 include just the same! 
 Health to you! Good will to you all, from me and 
 
 America sent, 
 For we acknowledge you all and each. 
 
 He does not want anyone to imagine that 
 he is thus saluting only the interesting, digni- 
 fied, or picturesque. The "Hottentot, with 
 clicking palate," "woolly-haired hordes," the 
 "Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with pro- 
 trusive lip, groveling" — all these and many 
 
The -Larger Man 83 
 
 more as discouraging, are counted in ("they 
 will come forward in due time to my side"), 
 and still he can affirm : 
 
 My spirit has passed in compassion and determination 
 
 around the whole earth. 
 I have looked for lovers and equals and found them 
 
 ready for me in all lands; 
 I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them. 
 
 The great man must first take all creation 
 into his nature, and then make that creation 
 glorious by his personal worth. 
 
 Here is realization. 
 
 Here is a man tallied — he realizes here what he has in 
 
 him. 
 The animals, the past, the future, light, space, majesty, 
 
 love, if they are vacant of you, you are vacant 
 
 of them. 
 
 The first condition pf making this all-inclu- 
 sive life glorious is valiant self-reliance. Man 
 must receive the universe, but he must him- 
 self be the center of that universe. 
 
 He may not look about him to learn the 
 truth, to receive commands, to find satisfac- 
 tion. These must be found in himself. He 
 must feel that he is the focal center for the 
 eternal law and potency. Anxiety for recog- 
 nition, for immediate results, for conformity, 
 are quite apart from such a spirit. 
 
84 Walt Whitman 
 
 I exist as I am — that is enough. 
 
 If no other world be aware, I sit content. 
 
 And if each and all be aware, I sit content. 
 
 One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and 
 
 that is myself. 
 And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand 
 
 or ten million years, 
 I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I 
 
 can wait. 
 My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite; 
 I laugh at what you call dissolution, 
 And I know the amplitude of time. 
 
 O, while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave; 
 To meet life as a powerful conqueror, 
 No fumes, no ennui — no more complaints or scornful 
 criticisms. 
 
 Superiority to external conditions, mastery 
 over circumstances is the first requisite of free- 
 dom and the life which can only grow in free- 
 dom. 
 
 Me imperturbe. 
 
 Me standing at ease in Nature, 
 
 Master of all, or mistress of all — aplomb in the midst of 
 
 irrational things. 
 Imbued as they — passive, receptive, silent as they. 
 Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, 
 
 less important than I thought. 
 Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary — all these 
 
 subordinate (I am equal with the best — I am not 
 
 subordinate). 
 Me, wherever my life is lived. 
 O, to be self-balanced for contingencies! 
 O, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, 
 
 rebuffs, as the trees and animals do. 
 
The Larger Man 85 
 
 A sublime confidence and power goes with 
 such self-poise. 
 
 Henceforth he "asks not a good fortune. I 
 am good fortune." Such an attitude produces 
 "men and women who while they are nigh me 
 the sunlight expands my blood." 
 
 The following extract from the "Song of 
 Myself ' strikingly anticipates a recent faith in 
 personal power over physical disease. It was 
 a prophecy, too, of Whitman's own influence 
 in the hospitals during the civil war. 
 
 To anyone dying — thither I speed and twist the knob of 
 the door. 
 
 Turn the bed clothes toward the foot of the bed. 
 
 Let the physician and the priest go home. 
 
 I seize the descending man and raise him with resist- 
 less will. 
 
 O, despairers, here is my neck. 
 
 By God! You shall not go down! 
 
 Hang your whole weight upon me. 
 
 I dilate you with tremendous breath — I buoy you up. 
 
 Every room in the house do I fill with an armed force. 
 
 Lovers of me, bafflers of graves, 
 
 Sleep! I and they keep guard all night. 
 
 Not doubt, not disease shall dare to lay finger upon you. 
 
 I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you myself, 
 
 And when you rise in the morning you will find what I 
 tell you is so. 
 
 I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on 
 their backs, 
 
 And for strong, upright men I bring yet more needed 
 help. 
 
86 Walt Whitman 
 
 The larger humanity is the be all and end 
 all of this poet's philosophy. He not only 
 yearns for it, but believes in it. A "hundred 
 million of superb persons will yet walk 
 through these states." "The rest" — all 
 other interests and existence — "part away for 
 superb persons and contribute to them." 
 
 All waits or goes by default, till a strong being appears; 
 A strong being is the proof of the race, and of the ability 
 of the universe. 
 
Youth, Maturity, Age 
 
VIII. — Youth, Maturity, Age 
 
 Youth, large, lusty, loving — youth full of grace, force, 
 
 fascination! 
 Do you know that Old Age may come after you with 
 
 equal grace, force, fascination? 
 Day full-blown and splendid — day of the immense sun, 
 
 action, ambition, laughter; 
 The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep, 
 
 and restoring darkness. 
 
 In the discussion of the larger man it was 
 impossible to go into many phases, too full of 
 helpful suggestion to be omitted. Continuing 
 the same subject, it may be well to give it the 
 age color Whitman so often beautifully lends 
 to his human references. 
 
 Youth is rarely pictured in itself. Usually 
 
 it is seen as a prophecy, or as typical of the 
 
 future with its promise : 
 
 O tan-faced prairie boy, 
 
 Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift; 
 
 Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at 
 
 last among the recruits 
 You came, taciturn, with nothing to give — we looked on 
 
 each other. 
 When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me. 
 
 Naturally, the robust, physical life which 
 
 Whitman values pre-eminently in maturity is 
 
9° Walt Whitman 
 
 a part of his ideal of youth. The same genu- 
 ine spontaneity is requisite for the boy — a 
 spontaneity from which springs a morality 
 finer than obedience to arbitrary dictation 
 from any source could secure: 
 
 The boy I love — the same becomes a man — not through 
 
 derived power, but in his own right; 
 Wicked, rather than virtuous, out of conformity and fear; 
 Fond of his sweetheart — relishing well his steak — 
 Unrequited love, or a slight, cutting him worse than 
 
 a wound cuts; 
 First rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eye, to sail 
 
 a skifi, to sing a song, or play on the banjo. 
 Preferring scars, and faces pitted with small-pox, over 
 
 all latherers, and those who keep out of the sun. 
 
 Whitman's charity and hearty good- will for 
 the morally unfortunate is only equaled by his 
 yearning solicitude for youth that it should 
 not lose its way. 
 
 In one of his poems he addresses '.'You just 
 maturing youth," and urges him to remember 
 many things which will tend to make him 
 keep his manhood unsullied. There is no 
 direct moralizing — only a series of suggestions 
 of inspiration and caution. 
 
 He reminds him of the wonderful heritage 
 each youth possesses in this country with its 
 history; of its high destiny and the copious 
 humanity streaming from every direction 
 
Youth, Maturity, Age 91 
 
 toward America; of the national hospitality 
 he must promote; of the freedom and abso- 
 lute equality he must guard ; of the great mul- 
 titude of the future for whom he must keep 
 all institutions noble. 
 
 Anticipate your own life — retract with merciless power, 
 Shrink nothing— retract in time — do you see those errors, 
 weaknesses, lies, thefts? 
 
 Think of the Soul ; 
 
 1 swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to 
 
 your Soul somehow to live in other spheres; 
 I do not know how, but I know it is so. 
 
 Think of loving and being loved; 
 Think of spiritual results, 
 
 Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every 
 one of its objects pass into spiritual results. 
 
 Interwoven thus are all sorts of incentives 
 for the high life of cleanliness and large 
 motive. 
 
 National pride, race responsibility, physical 
 safety, reverence for woman and for love, the 
 stimulus of heroes, responsibility for the soul's 
 eternal perfecting, are all marshaled to aid the 
 youth in his conquest over the unworthy. 
 
 He speaks of the mission of poetry as being 
 "to fill man with a vigorous and clean manli- 
 ness, religiousness, and give him good heart as 
 
92 Walt Whitman 
 
 a radical possession and habit." He himself 
 certainly strives to that end. 
 
 It is difficult to separate special character 
 elements from poems, all of which are filled 
 with life motives and ideals — human interests 
 and characteristics. 
 
 Whitman could not conceive noble character 
 indifferent to matters of country and human- 
 ity. His thought of America will be later dis- 
 cussed. This is his most intense passion — the 
 love of the aggregate in the national life — and 
 hence his conception of fully matured man- 
 hood has in it much of patriotism. 
 
 ■ The highest for each and all in the corpo- 
 rate life — to live more nobly, that all may 
 inherit greater nobleness, should be man's 
 deep-lying aspiration. 
 
 Great is the English brood. What brood has so vast 
 
 a destiny as the English? 
 It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth 
 
 with the new rule. 
 The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules; and as the 
 
 love, justice, equality in the Soul, rule. 
 
 Love of truth as an element of character 
 takes on a different angle in Whitman than is 
 given it elsewhere. Love of some abstract 
 and exalted truth is too often made an excuse 
 for indifference to prosaic facts. The truth 
 
Touth, Maturity, Age 93 
 
 lies in all things as they exist, if one is wise 
 enough to see it, and nothing can hide it but 
 cynicism and indifference. 
 
 Great is the quality of Truth in man; 
 
 The quality of truth in man supports itself through all 
 
 changes; 
 It is inevitable in the man; he and it are in love, and 
 
 never leave each other. 
 The Truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight. 
 If there be any Soul, there is truth — ^if there be any man 
 
 or woman, there is truth — if there be physical or 
 
 moral, there is truth; 
 If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth — if there 
 
 be things at all upon the earth, there is truth. 
 
 truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am deter- 
 
 mined to press my way toward you. 
 Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the 
 sea after you. 
 
 As a rule. Whitman lays little stress upon 
 mental power. If separated from energy for 
 practical affairs or human sympathy he would 
 care little for intellectual attainment, and so at 
 times he seems to undervalue it. 
 
 Consistency does not trouble him, however, 
 for he includes "multitude," and before he 
 makes full circuit he embraces many sides of 
 the truth. 
 
 1 have said many times that materials and the Soul are 
 
 great, and that all depends on physique; 
 Now I reverse what I said, and affirm that all depends 
 on the aesthetic or intellectual. 
 
94 Walt Whitman 
 
 And that criticism is great — and that refinement is 
 greatest of all; 
 
 And I affirm now that mind governs — ^and that all de- 
 pends on the mind. 
 
 For definitely expressed aspiration, after 
 specific character attainments, the poem 
 named in the later editions ' ' Excelsior' ' stands 
 alone. 
 
 Who has gone farthest? for I would go farther. 
 
 And who has been just? for I would be the most just 
 
 person on the earth. 
 And who most cautious? for I would be more cautious. 
 And who has been happiest? O, I think it is I — I think 
 
 no one was ever happier than I. 
 And who has lavished all? for I lavish constantly the 
 
 best I have. 
 And who proudest? for I think I have reason to be the 
 
 proudest son alive — for I am the son of the brawny 
 
 and tall-topt city. 
 And who has been bold and true? for I would be the 
 
 boldest and truest being in the universe. 
 And who benevolent? for I would show more benevo- 
 lence than all the rest. 
 And who has received the love of the most friends? 
 
 for I know what it is to receive the passionate 
 
 love of many friends. 
 And who possesses a perfect and enamored body? for I 
 
 do not believe anyone possesses a more perfect 
 
 or enamored body than mine; 
 And who thinks the amplest thoughts? for I would sur- 
 round those thoughts. 
 And who has made hymns fit for the earth? for I am 
 
 mad with devouring ecstacy to make joyous hymns 
 
 for the whole earth. 
 
Youth, Maturity, Age 95 
 
 Surely, by this time, no one can think of 
 this as egotism of the petty sort. The strong- 
 est conviction of the poet is that such self- 
 exaltation is the hope of the race and pecu- 
 liarly needed by the people of a democratic 
 nation, resting, as it does, on the individual 
 sanctity of each. 
 
 So long! 
 
 I announce an old age that shall lightly and joyfully 
 meet its translation. 
 
 Nothing is more unique in Whitman than 
 his delight in old age, save his eulogy of 
 death, to which it is akin. 
 
 He sees in Old Age "the estuary that en- 
 larges and spreads itself grandly as it pours in 
 the great sea." 
 
 He has for age also the expectation of an 
 athletic strength and enthusiasm. 
 
 In "Children of Adam" he describes a 
 great-grandfather "of wonderful vigor, calm- 
 ness, and beauty of person. The shape of his 
 head, the richness and breadth of his manners, 
 the pale yellow and white of his hair and 
 beafd, and the immeasurable meaning of his 
 black eyes." 
 
 This man of eighty years was six feet tall — 
 "the blood showed like scarlet through the 
 clear brown of his skin." 
 
9 6 tValt Whitman 
 
 When he went with his five sons and many grand- 
 sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the 
 most beautiful and vigorous of the gang. 
 
 There is ever a sense of the sublime and 
 steadfast in the old age so tenderly and rever- 
 ently exalted in these poems. An atmosphere 
 as of the heights of the conqueror, but it is 
 never a final thing; always above and beyond 
 it lie the il'imitable spaces of eternal progress. 
 
 O, the old manhood of me, my joy! 
 
 My children and grandchildren — my white hair and 
 
 beard — 
 My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch 
 
 of my life. 
 
 And again he describes the "Journeyers" 
 and among them : 
 
 Old Age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breath 
 
 of the universe; 
 Old Age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom 
 
 of death. 
 
 In the "Song at Sunset," a poem whose 
 poetic quality is peculiarly exquisite, we find 
 this summary: 
 
 Good in all, 
 
 In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals. 
 
 In the annual return of the seasons, 
 
 In the hilarity of youth, 
 
 In the strength and flush of manhood, 
 
 In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age. 
 
 In the superb vistas of death. 
 
Unity with Nature 
 
IX. — Unity with Nature 
 
 There was a child went forth every day, 
 
 And the first object he look'd upon, that object he be- 
 came, 
 
 And that object became part of him for the day or a 
 certain part of the day. 
 
 Or for many years, or stretching cycles of years. 
 
 The early lilacs became part of this child. 
 
 And grass and white and red morning glories and white 
 
 and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird, 
 And the third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint 
 
 litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf. 
 And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of 
 
 the pondside. 
 And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below 
 
 there,' and the beautiful curious liquid. 
 And the water plants, with their graceful flat heads, all 
 
 became part of him. 
 
 It is a surprise to the student of Walt Whit- 
 man to find that with all his unusual interests, 
 he is perhaps most excellent, after all, in the 
 realm common to poets generally — the descrip- 
 tion and interpretation of nature. 
 
 Mere admiration of natural beauty does not 
 satisfy. All the world about in its every 
 aspect, he believes is unconsciously absorbed* 
 99 
 
loo Walt Whitman 
 
 and assimilated into each life from the earliest 
 moments and later should be consciously 
 received into the inmost soul as a large part 
 of its richest experience. 
 
 It seems scarcely possible that even Words- 
 worth's word brush has painted more exquisite 
 pictures of nature's life and growth, color and 
 sound than Whitman has left us. 
 
 His words in these pictures are chosen with 
 rare originality and perfect discrimination. 
 But even in the abundance of his nature work, 
 man is never forgotten. The human soul is 
 always the center. It is nature as man sees 
 it — nature as it reacts in spiritual interpreta- 
 tion — never nature for itself alone. 
 
 Before the fitting man all Nature yields. 
 
 This extract from the ' ' Song of Myself, ' ' 
 though less beautiful than many of his later 
 passages, is unique and inspiring: 
 
 To behold the daybreak — 
 
 The little light fades the immense and diaphanous 
 
 shadows. 
 The air tastes good to my palate; 
 Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently 
 
 rising, freshly exuding, 
 Scooting obliquely high and low. 
 
 Something I can not see puts upward libidinous prongs; 
 Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven. 
 
Unity with Nature loi 
 
 Dazzling and tremendous, how quick the sun-rise would 
 
 kill me, 
 If I could not now and always send the sun-rise out of me. 
 We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun; 
 We found our own, O my soul, in the calm and cool of 
 
 the daybreak. 
 
 The sun is a favorite object of his adoration. 
 He invokes it thus in the opening of a series 
 of his later poems : 
 
 Thou orb aloft full dazzling! thou hot October sun! 
 Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand. 
 The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam. 
 And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue; 
 O sun of noon, refulgent! my special word to thee. 
 
 Thou that with fructifying heat and light, 
 
 O'er myriad farms, o'er lands and waters, North and 
 
 South, 
 O'er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining in 
 
 space; 
 Thou that impartially infoldest all, not only continents, 
 
 seas; 
 Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers 
 
 givest so liberally, 
 Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting 
 
 ray out of thy million millions. 
 Strike through these chants, 
 Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for 
 
 these. 
 Prepare the later afternoon of me myself — prepare my 
 
 lengthening shadows. 
 Prepare my starry nights. 
 
I02 Walt Whitman 
 
 The night is full of suggestion and promise 
 to the poet as well as the sun. To him, it is 
 a sacred prophecy of that illimitable potency 
 men call death. Its mystery, its star-filled 
 immensity, its brooding, nourishing power all 
 enter frequently into his thought. 
 
 I am he that walks with the tender and growing night; 
 
 I call to the earth and sea, half held by the Night. 
 
 Press close, bare-bosomed Night! 
 
 Press close, magnetic, nourishing Night! 
 
 Night of the south winds! Night of the large few stars! 
 
 Still, nodding Night! Mad, naked summer Night. 
 
 This passage continues with an apostrophe 
 
 to the earth in the moonlight, which is surely 
 
 passionate in its beauty. 
 
 Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breathed Earth! 
 
 Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! 
 
 Earth of the departed sunset! Earth of the mountain's 
 
 misty top! 
 Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged 
 
 with blue! 
 Earth of the shine and dark, mottling the tide of the 
 
 rivers! 
 Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer 
 
 for my sake! 
 Far-swooping elbowed Earth! Rich, apple-blossomed 
 
 Earth! 
 Smile, for Your Lover comes! 
 
 The sea is an endless source of wonder, 
 delight, and suggestion. It even staggers and 
 humbles him at times. 
 
Unity with Nature 103 
 
 I, too, but signify, at the utmost, a little washed-up drift. 
 
 Oppressed with myself that I have dared to open my 
 mouth. 
 
 I perceive Nature here in sight of the sea, is taking ad- 
 vantage of me, to dartjUpon me, and sting me, 
 
 Because I am assuming so much. 
 
 And because 1 have dared to open my mouth to sing 
 at all. 
 
 He is in despair at want of power to find 
 "the secret of the wondrous murmuring" he 
 envies, but finally asserts: 
 
 Sea-ra£f! crook-tongued waves! 
 
 O, I will yet sing, some day, what you have said to me. 
 
 The following passage is regarded by 
 Symonds as of a fine poetic quality. It cer- 
 tainly says much in little and the few lines 
 which express the experience of the ocean 
 swimmer are full of satisfaction to one who 
 has known that keenest physical delight. 
 
 Yon Sea! I resign myself to you also — I guess what you 
 
 mean, 
 I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers, 
 I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me; 
 We must have a turn together — I undress, hurry me out 
 
 of sight of the land. 
 Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse. 
 Dash me with amorous^wet — I^can repay you. 
 Sea of stretched ground swells! 
 Sea breathing broad, convulsive breaths! 
 Sea of the brine of life! Sea of unshoveled yet always 
 
 ready graves! 
 
I04 Walt Whitman 
 
 Howler and scooper of storms! Capricious and dainty sea! 
 I am integral with you — I too am of one phase, and of 
 all phases. 
 
 Whitman's cosmopolitan enthusiasm is well 
 illustrated in his equal appreciation of the 
 peculiar attractions of each of the many parts 
 of the nation. 
 
 His thrilling delight in Manahatta — his own 
 New York — is no more intense than his home- 
 sick yearning for the South. "O Magnet 
 South" is an ecstatic jumble of each and all 
 of the Southern states, but breathes the pecu- 
 liar aroma of that region. California ideals 
 and possibilities as well as its matchless skies 
 have never been better voiced than by him in, 
 the "Song of the Redwood Tree," and in 
 many other references. 
 
 The mountain states are not omitted. He 
 speaks of "their delicious, rare atmosphere," 
 and of their "mountain tops innumerable 
 draped in violet haze," and concludes: "Yes, 
 I fell in love with Denver, and even felt a wish 
 to spend my declining and dying days there. ' ' 
 
 Thus he escapes even that one harmless 
 prejudice from which few are free — love of 
 one's own locality at the expense of other 
 regions. He vies with each and all in appre- 
 ciation of each and every locality. 
 
Unity with Nature 105 
 
 Nature is vocalized in the thought of this 
 poet 
 
 Ah, from a little child, 
 
 Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became musici 
 
 My mother's voice in lullaby or hymn 
 
 (The voice, O, tender voices, memory's loving voices 
 
 Last miracle of all, O dearest mother's, sister's voices). 
 
 The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long- 
 
 leav'd corn, 
 The measur'd sea-surf beating on the sand, 
 The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream. 
 The wild fowls' notes at night as flying low, migrating 
 
 north or south; 
 The psalm in the country church or mid the clustering 
 
 trees, the open air camp meeting. 
 The fiddler in the tavern, the glee, the long-strung sailor 
 
 song. 
 The lowing cattle, bleating sheep, the crowing cock at 
 
 dawn. 
 
 "That music always about me," is a chorus 
 formed of all harmonies. 
 
 A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with 
 
 glad notes of daybreak I hear, 
 A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of 
 
 immense waves, 
 A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under and 
 
 through the universe. 
 
 The music-lover should study the poem, 
 "Proud Music of the Storm." It contains a 
 fairly good history of music as well as its 
 theory, even though at the end he turns it all 
 into his own dear lesson for the poetic art. 
 
io6 Walt Whitman 
 
 All art must, however, follow the same clue — 
 Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world — the real 
 Nourished henceforth by one celestial dream. 
 
 Before entering upon Whitman's theory of 
 his art, so closely akin as it is to his reverent 
 love of nature, there should be some reference 
 to the famous memorial poem to Lincoln, 
 "When Lilacs Last in the Door- Yard 
 Bloomed." 
 
 One must not expect to enjoy fully this 
 poem until the right to do so has been earned 
 by hard study. 
 
 Is it not strange that the world is so slow to 
 see that the best poetry, like the best music, 
 cannot be at first sight understood or enjoyed 
 to the full? 
 
 It is no reproach against a musical composer 
 that his symphony eludes the offhand, im- 
 promptu interpretation of an amateur. Why 
 should it settle the fate of a poet? Deeply 
 wrought art in all departments requires study, 
 and then becomes richer in returns through 
 each successive year in which it is given 
 further study. 
 
 This poem, in memory of Lincoln, is a richly 
 woven wreath of spring flowers, entwined 
 with evening star and song of the thrush to 
 crown the brow of the fallen hero. It sug- 
 
Unity with Nature 107 
 
 gests the depressing days in which the slow- 
 drooping star had brought foreboding to the 
 poet of the sinking of humanity's brightest 
 star. It pictures the long black funeral train 
 moving across a continent of breaking hearts 
 to its resting place, but moving over a spring- 
 time carpet. The lilac, branch he brings to 
 this coffin he brings alike to all, for death is 
 akin to the sweet natural breath of the flowers. 
 
 Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring, 
 For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song 
 
 for you, O sane and sacred death. 
 All over bouquets of roses, 
 
 O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, 
 But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first. 
 Copious I break, I break the sprig from the bushes. 
 With loaded arms I come, pausing for you, 
 For you and the cofiiins, all of you, O death. 
 
 Then, with the thought of death as a com- 
 rade upon one side and the fact of death upon 
 the other, the poet fled forth into the forest 
 to hear the thrush's song. 
 
 The thrush sings triumphant of those who are 
 Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O death. 
 
 The poem closes with the lines : 
 
 For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands, 
 
 and this for his dear sake 
 Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul. 
 There in the fragrant pines and cedars dusk and dim. 
 
io8 Walt Whitman 
 
 After all the "much speaking" about 
 Whitman's art or his want of art, there can be 
 no doubt of the one thing he tried for, namely, 
 the simplicity of nature, and harmony in his 
 thought and form with nature's reality and 
 spontaneity. 
 
 I swear there is no greatness or power that does not 
 emulate those of the earth. 
 
 There can be no theory of any account unless it cor- 
 roborate the theory of earth. 
 
 No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of ac- 
 count, unless it compare with the amplitude of the 
 earth; 
 
 Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, recti- 
 tude of the earth. 
 
 His poem, "To the Sayers of Words," has 
 in later editions been rechristened, "A Song 
 of the Rolling Earth," in further emphasis 
 of the fact that all art in words must con- 
 form to the greatness and individuality of 
 nature's rugged strength and unstereotyped 
 beauty. 
 
 The following poem, inspired by Platte 
 Cafion, in Colorado, is the author's own 
 answer to the accusation that his poems have 
 forgotten art. Perhaps, he replies, but they 
 have not forgotten the spirit which formed the 
 rocks, peaks, and gorges of such a scene as 
 this. 
 
Unity with Nature 109 
 
 Spirit that form'd this scene. 
 
 These tumbled rock-piles, grim and red, 
 
 These reckless, heaven-ambitious peaks. 
 
 These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked fresh- 
 ness. 
 
 These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own, 
 
 I know thee, savage spirit — we have communed together. 
 
 Mine, too, such wild arrays, for reasons of their own; 
 
 Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art? 
 
 To fuse within themselves its rules precise and deli- 
 catesse? 
 
 The lyrist's measured beat, the wrought -out temple's 
 grace — column and polished arch forgot? 
 
 But Thou that revelest here — spirit that formed this 
 scene. 
 
 They have remember'd thee. 
 
Democracy 
 
X. — Democracy 
 
 Democracy! 
 
 Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and 
 joyfully singing. 
 
 My Comrade! 
 
 For you, to share with me two greatnesses — and a third 
 one, rising inclusive and more resplendent, 
 
 The greatness of Love and Democracy — and the great- 
 ness of Religion. 
 
 I speak the pass-word primeval — I give the sign of De- 
 mocracy. 
 
 In this topic we reach the pivotal point of 
 the enthusiasms of Walt Whitman. Every 
 other element in his thought is in some way- 
 related to this principle — the equality and 
 sacred value of every human being and a free 
 life in society based upon this equality and 
 worth. 
 
 He brings to this thought, as we have seen, 
 a unique appreciation of the individual — an 
 individual to which an eternal past of cosmic 
 evolution has contributed and which will have 
 an eternal future in which to fulfill its destiny. 
 
 This exaltation of the individual is akin to — 
 indeed, is another aspect of the poet's democ- 
 racy. Man in his relation to other men — the 
 "3 
 
114 Walt Whitman 
 
 larger life of all men with each other in a 
 united humanity is a most vital aspect of the 
 life of the individual. Indeed, the one and 
 the many are of co-equal importance in these 
 poems — each is cause, each is effect. A noble 
 individual is necessary to a noble society, but 
 a noble, equalized fraternity in society is 
 essential to the rounded man or woman. 
 
 Whitman's passion of passions is his adora- 
 tion of America, but it is because it is to him 
 the incarnation of this dual supremacy — the 
 embodiment of the sacred mass made up of 
 sacred, vital units. 
 
 The main shapes arise! 
 
 Shapes of Democracy total, result of centuries, 
 
 Shapes ever projecting other shapes, 
 
 Shapes of turbulent, manly cities, 
 
 Shapes of the friends and home -givers of the whole 
 
 earth, 
 Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole 
 
 earth. 
 
 This democracy is of every sort — political, 
 social, moral. 
 
 We have already seen how complete is his 
 sense of comradeship even with the moral out- 
 cast, and social democracy breathes in every 
 expression of character ideal. Indeed, the 
 tremendous force of his universal sympathy 
 lies in that atmosphere of democracy which he 
 
Democracy 1 1 5 
 
 gives to every sentiment he utters, whatever 
 the subject. 
 
 There remains to be specifically noted his 
 attitude toward political democracy. A gov- 
 ernment in which laws and officials are min- 
 imized and always directly subservient to the 
 will of the people is the only form of social 
 organization which Whitman can tolerate ex- 
 cept as an evolutionary stepping stone. 
 
 He would rejoice in the time when laws had 
 become unnecessary through the fraternal de- 
 velopment of humanity. 
 
 The greatest city is one 
 
 Where the men and women think lightly of the laws, 
 Where the slave ceases, and the master of the slave 
 
 ceases. 
 Where the populace rise at once against the never- 
 ending audacity of elected persons, 
 Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the sea 
 
 to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and 
 
 unript waves. 
 Where outside authority enters always after precedence 
 
 of inside authority, 
 Where the citizen is always the head and the ideal — 
 
 and President, Mayor, Governor, and what not, 
 
 are agents for pay — 
 Where children are taught to be laws to themselves 
 
 and depend on themselves. 
 
 Whitman feels it a supreme duty to urge 
 this self-assertion at the expense of outgrown 
 
ii6 Walt Whitman 
 
 law and insidious shackles. It is his "to pro- 
 mulgate liberty ; to cheer up slaves and horrify 
 despots ; to build for that which builds for 
 mankind; to balance ranks, complexions, 
 creeds, and the sexes; to justify science and 
 the march of equality, and to feed the blood 
 of the brawn-beloved of time. 
 
 The following are stanzas from a poem to 
 "A Foiled European Revolutionaire" : 
 
 Courage yet, my brother or my sister! 
 
 Keep on — Liberty is to be subserved whatever occurs; 
 
 That is nothing that is quelled by one or two failures, 
 
 or any number of failures. 
 Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, 
 
 or by any unfaithfulness. 
 Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon> 
 
 penal statutes. 
 
 What we believe in waits latent forever through all the 
 continents, 
 
 Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and 
 light, is positive and composed, knows no dis- 
 couragement, 
 
 Waiting patiently, waiting its time. 
 
 When liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go, 
 nor the second or third to go. 
 
 It waits for all the rest to go; it is the last. 
 
 When there are no more memories of heroes and 
 
 martyrs, 
 And when all life and all the souls of men and women 
 
 are discharged from any part of the earth. 
 
Democracy 117 
 
 Then only shall liberty, or the idea o£ liberty, be dis- 
 charged from that part of the earth, 
 And the infidel come into full possession. 
 
 Then courage, European revolter, revoltress! 
 For till all ceases, neither must you cease. 
 
 The poem to General Grant sounds his pride 
 in the wholesome democracy of America. 
 This plain, simple-hearted Westerner was 
 receiving the homage of the world, and all 
 Americans were thus honored. 
 
 What best, I see in thee, 
 
 Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great high- 
 ways, 
 Ever undimm'd by time, shoots warlike victory's dazzle, 
 Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land 
 
 in peace. 
 Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable 
 
 Asia swarm'd upon. 
 Who walk'd with kings with even face the round world's 
 
 promenade; 
 But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings. 
 Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, 
 
 Illinois, 
 Ohio's, Indiana's millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, 
 
 all to the front. 
 Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even face 
 
 the round world's promenade. 
 Were all so justified. 
 
 The roots of this poet's theoretical democ- 
 racy reach with generous, homely strength 
 into the daily commonplace associations of 
 
ii8 Walt Whitman 
 
 life, and hence it has 'n it a vitality, reality, 
 and beauty which mere prating of the rights 
 of man cannot give. 
 
 Will you seek afar off? You surely will come back at 
 
 last. 
 In things best known to you finding the best, or as good 
 
 as the best. 
 In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, 
 
 lovingest. 
 Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but in this 
 
 place, not for another hour, but this hour. 
 Man, in the first you see or touch, always in friend, 
 
 brother, nighest neighbors — woman, in mother, 
 
 sister, wife. 
 You workwomen and workmen of the States having your 
 
 own divine and strong life, 
 All else giving place to men and women like you. 
 
 It is the man that interests this poet as we 
 see at every turn. This is his explanation : 
 
 When the psalm sings instead of the singer. 
 
 When the script preaches instead of the preacher. 
 
 When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver 
 that carved the supporting desk. 
 
 When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, 
 and they touch my body back again. 
 
 When a university course convinces like a slumbering 
 woman and child convince, 
 
 When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night- 
 watchman's daughter — 
 
 When warrantee deeds loaf in chairs opposite and are 
 my friendly companions, 
 
 I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of 
 them as I do of men and women like you. 
 
Democracy 119 
 
 Like all who are launched on any of life's 
 deep currents, Whitman feels the broader 
 stream toward which he is tending. 
 
 The future with its inevitable growth in the 
 power of the people and in world-wide free- 
 dom and equality is as certain as though it 
 were already the present. 
 
 Years of the modern! Years of the unperformed! 
 Your horizon rises. I see it parting away for more august 
 
 dramas. 
 I see not America only, not only Liberty's nation but 
 
 other nations preparing. 
 I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, 
 
 the solidarity of races. 
 I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the 
 
 world's stage. 
 I see Freedom, completely arm'd and victorious and very 
 
 haughty, with Law on one side and Peace on the 
 
 other. 
 A stupendous trio, all issuing forth against the idea of 
 
 caste; 
 What historic denouements are these we so rapidly 
 
 approach? 
 I see men marching and countermarching by swift 
 
 millions. 
 I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies 
 
 broken. 
 I see the landmarks of European kings removed. 
 I see this day the People beginning their landmarks (all 
 
 others give way). 
 The performed America -and Europe grow dim, retiring 
 
 in shadow behind me. 
 The unperformed more gigantic than ever, advance, ad- 
 vance upon me. 
 
I20 Walt Whitman 
 
 In "The Mystic Trumpeter," he appeals to 
 the unseen musician, after he has blown the 
 bugles of the past — of love and of war, of 
 despair and failure, to "vouchsafe a higher 
 strain than any yet" — "some vision of the 
 future" — and there follows: 
 
 O glad, exulting, culminating song! 
 
 A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes. 
 
 Marches of victory — man disenthral'd — the conqueror 
 
 at last- 
 Hymns to the universal God from universal man — all joy! 
 A reborn race appears — a perfect world, all joy! 
 Women and men in wisdom, innocence and health — 
 
 all joy! 
 Riotous, laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy! 
 War, sorrow, suffering gone — the rank earth purged — 
 
 nothing but joy left! 
 The ocean fill'd with joy — the atmosphere all joy! 
 Joy! Joy! In freedom, worship, love! Joy in the ecstasy 
 
 of life! 
 Enough to merely be! Enough to breathe! 
 Joy! joy! All over joy! 
 
America 
 
XI. — America 
 
 Center of equal daughters, equal sons, 
 
 All, all alike endear' d, grown, ungrown, young or old. 
 
 Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich. 
 
 Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law, and Love, 
 
 A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother, 
 
 Chair'd in the adamant of Time. 
 
 America means to Whitman the incarnation 
 of sovereign individuals associated in perfect 
 democracy. Hence his adoration of the 
 national ideal. 
 
 No subject is the theme of so many poems, 
 none receives such frequent mention in all 
 poems as this idealized, glorified Union of 
 Many in One, which the poet sees in America. 
 
 In his earliest poems, he expresses his long- 
 ing to sing the songs of "These States," but 
 it remained for his maturer years to adequately 
 embody this rapturous devotion and exalted 
 expectation. 
 
 His demand upon those who would be poets 
 of America is exacting. They must know its 
 people in all their general traits and local 
 peculiarities, must be "possessed of" its his- 
 tory and great charters ; must have rid them- 
 123 
 
124 Walt Whitman 
 
 selves of all feudal poems and have "assumed 
 the poems and processes of democracy" ; must 
 be "faithful to things." 
 
 His catechism of this would-be poet is 
 searching. 
 
 Are you really of the whole People? 
 
 Are you not of some coterie? Some school of mere 
 religion? 
 
 Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? Ani- 
 mating now to life itself? 
 
 Have you vivified yourself with the Maternity of these 
 States? 
 
 Have you, too, the old, ever fresh forbearance and 
 impartiality? 
 
 Do you hold the like love for those hardening to matu- 
 rity? For the last born? Little or big, and for 
 the errant? 
 
 He insists that this poet shall be alive and 
 speak for himself, not be a mere amanuensis 
 forworn-out traditions. "Have you not im- 
 ported this, or the spirit of it in some ship? 
 Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness?" 
 We must have no more assumption that 
 "what is notoriously gone is still here." 
 
 Whitman is not blind to the imperfections 
 of 'the actual America, but in this, as in all 
 things, he sees the present in the light of the 
 past and the future, and wastes no time in 
 querulous fault-finding. 
 
 The best way to rid existing conditions of 
 
America 125 
 
 their blots is to arouse a sense of the sacred 
 inheritance of the past, the blessed significance 
 of the hopes and plans of the prophets and the 
 ipighty possibilities of the future through truth 
 to the higher principles. 
 
 The mission of the poet is to see the poten- 
 tial ideal in and through the present, however 
 disappointing — 
 
 For the great Idea, 
 
 That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets. 
 
 Of these States the poet is the equable man. 
 
 The years straying toward infidelity he withholds by his 
 
 Steady faith, 
 He is no arguer, he is judgment (Nature accepts him 
 
 absolutely). 
 He judges not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling 
 
 round a helpless thing. 
 As he sees the farthest he has the most faith, 
 His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things. 
 In the disputes about God and eternity he is silent. 
 He sees eternity less like a play with prologue and 
 
 denouement. 
 He sees eternity in men and women; he does not see 
 
 men and women as dreams or dots. 
 For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals. 
 For that the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders; 
 The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies for- 
 eign despots. 
 Without extinction is liberty, without retrograde is 
 
 Equality. 
 
126 Walt Whitman 
 
 They live in the feelings of young men and the best 
 
 women. 
 (Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth 
 
 been always ready to fall for Liberty.) 
 
 The history of modern times has been the 
 working-out of two great objects : the strength- 
 ening of individuality and the development 
 of organic unity among large bodies of people 
 in society and nation. 
 
 Unity and individuality — these have been 
 the motifs in great national and social dramas 
 for centuries of human history, and indeed for 
 eras of animal evolution. These have seemed 
 warring for the ascendancy. At times the gain 
 of one would crush to insignificance the other. 
 When national unity secured real existence 
 through the centralization of monarchy, as in 
 France, the individual appeared lost in this 
 larger entity. 
 
 In Italy, as the rivalry of cities disintegrated 
 all national life, the individual blossomed into a 
 full development which enriched the wideworld. 
 But neither factor could be permanently sup- 
 pressed. France has, in its later develop- 
 ments with chaos and tumult, shown that 
 the individual must be felt in the united mass. 
 
 Italy has, in this century, proven, with 
 scarcely less struggle and pain, that developed 
 
America 1 27 
 
 individuals demand a noble national unity for 
 highest expression. 
 
 Germany has, with like spiral ascent, com- 
 passed national union after an era of individual 
 rule. 
 
 To combine the freest growth of the indi- 
 vidual with the fullest measure of social unity 
 is the problem of human progress. 
 
 Nature is pledged to each alike. Evolution 
 is bent upon the union of these apparent ene- 
 mies. It will find means to perfect the units 
 while it makes equally complete their union. 
 
 Walt Whitman unites in remarkable fashion 
 the most intense devotion to each of these 
 conceptions. No one could assert with more 
 uncompromising insistence that the individual 
 is the Alpha and Omega of all things, and yet 
 no one has ever given such reality and tran- 
 scending allegiance to the Larger Whole. 
 
 This is possible because there is no contra- 
 diction between the two. The best developed 
 person is he or she who can enter most de- 
 votedly into unity with all. 
 
 There are two commandments^ but the 
 second is "like unto" the first. 
 
 The following is typical of Whitman's insist- 
 ence upon the supremacy of the individual : 
 
128 Walt Whitman 
 
 Fall behind me, States 1 
 
 A man before all — myself, typical, before all. 
 
 Underneath all, individuals, 
 
 I swear nothing is good to me which ignores individuals; 
 
 The American compact is altogether with individuals. 
 
 The only government is that which makes minute of 
 
 Individuals. 
 The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly 
 
 to one single individual — namely, to You. 
 
 Whitman's patriotism always breathes in 
 large spaces. It is never a thoughtless, in- 
 stinctive hurrah. Philosophy, science, history, 
 have all entered into the fiber of his being, and 
 made a nature which responds profoundly to 
 the existing order, because realizing its vast 
 cosmic significance. 
 
 Back of the America of to-day with its ap- 
 proximate freedom he sees the eternity of slow 
 evolution in universe and planet, the long, 
 long ages of human struggle and the centuries 
 of national development. 
 
 The present, sacred with hard-won inherit- 
 ance, the future freighted with responsibility 
 confidently met. These make of this poet's 
 love of country a veritable religion. 
 
 Brain of the New World, what a task is thine; 
 
 To formulate the Modem .... 
 
 By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the 
 
 mighty past, the dead. 
 To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present. 
 
America 129 
 
 Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy; 
 
 Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the Present only; 
 
 The Past is also stored in thee; 
 
 Thou boldest not the venture of thyself alone; not of the 
 
 Western Continent alone; 
 Earth's risumi entire floats on thy keel, O ship, is steadied 
 
 by thy spars, 
 With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations 
 
 sink or swim with thee. 
 With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, 
 
 wars, thou bearest the other continents. 
 Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port 
 
 triumphant ; 
 Steer, then, with good strong hand and wary eye, O 
 
 helmsman, thou carryest great companions. 
 
 The poems of the war are filled with tender, 
 spirited sympathy. He admires the sturdy 
 manhood of it all, glories in its heroism — 
 believes so much in the storm that every 
 detail in his realistic descriptions takes on dig- 
 nity and worth. 
 
 In his war experiences, Whitman got hold 
 of life more intimately than at any other point. 
 His admiration of women and of human affairs 
 seems a trifle like hearsay sometimes, but on 
 the battlefield and in the hospital he found 
 reality. Here he met men of all kinds and of 
 all ages, and how he loved them ! 
 
 There is no academic affection here, no 
 theoretical approval, but a daily test under 
 prosaic and often loathsome conditions and 
 
130 Walt Whitman 
 
 the great heart grew more gentle, more tender, 
 more passionately devoted with each additional 
 homesick breast which rested comforted upon 
 his own. 
 
 It is hard to see why the world has so 
 calmly accepted the opinion that tenderness, 
 sympathy, and responsive sentiment are pecu- 
 liarly the property of women. Even our false 
 training and standards cannot do more than 
 give a thin crustiness to the great-hearted 
 warmth of nature which blesses the larger part 
 of the masculine species. When Whitman is 
 better known, it will tend to remove even the 
 external crust. 
 
 So much of incident enters into the war 
 poems that extracts are inadequate. 
 
 The following lines close the verses "A 
 
 Dirge for Two Veterans" : 
 
 O strong dead-march, you please me! 
 O moon immense with your silvery face, you soothe me! 
 O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial! 
 What have I also to give you? 
 
 The moon gives you light. 
 And the bugles and drums give you music, 
 And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans. 
 
 My heart gives you love. 
 
 The close of the war left the poet baptized 
 with renewed faith and hope. "The drum of 
 war' ' had been his because he believed in its 
 
America 131 
 
 justice and necessity. "War, red war," had 
 been his song while the sacred unity he adored 
 had been in the balance, but he rejoiced most 
 keenly in the possibility of peace. 
 
 The significance of a volunteer army deeply 
 impressed him. In Washington he watched 
 the thousands of thousands of soldiers on the 
 final parade, and then, in an instant as he 
 gazed, they were gone, absorbed again into 
 the currents of the general life. 
 
 A pause — the armies wait, 
 
 A million flush' d, embattled conquerors wait, 
 
 The world too waits, then soft as breaking night and 
 
 sure as dawn. 
 They melt, they disappear. 
 
 Exult, O lands! victorious lands! 
 
 Not there your victory on those red, shuddering fields; 
 
 But here and hence your victory. 
 
 Melt, melt away, ye armies — disperse, ye blue -clad 
 
 soldiers, 
 Resolve ye back again, give up for good your deadly 
 
 arms, 
 Other the arms — the fields henceforth for you, or South 
 
 or North, 
 With saner wars, sweet wars, life-giving wars. 
 
 A large standing army would have horrified 
 Whitman. He is bard of "latent armies, a 
 million soldiers waiting ever-ready," never of 
 a hired soldiery doomed to demoralizing idle- 
 ness or blasphemous activity. 
 
132 Walt Whitman 
 
 Genuine humanity-prompted war has mean- 
 ing and final beneficence, when inevitable. It 
 proves again that humankind is not sordid or 
 commercialized beyond readiness to die for an 
 Idea. 
 
 The poem, "Rise O Days from Your 
 Fathomless Deep," is a glorification of the 
 storm in nature or in society. He craves 
 primal energy, earth-creating volcanoes, 
 thundering dauntlessness, and the satisfaction 
 which had formerly come only from ocean 
 surge and Niagara crashing had at last been 
 given by the magnificent human uprising of 
 the war. 
 
 But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am 
 
 glutted, 
 I have witness'd the true lightning, I have witness'd my 
 
 cities electric, 
 I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike 
 
 America rise. 
 Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern 
 
 solitary wilds. 
 No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea. 
 
 America is always to Whitman "The 
 Mother," and the most perfect and profound 
 of his poems to her is that beginning "Thou, 
 mother, with thy equal brood." 
 
 While never carpingly critical, 'he does not 
 fail to see the national dangers. He knows 
 
America 133 
 
 that "in a smiling mask death shall approach 
 beguiling thee, that a livid cancer may spread 
 its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, 
 seeking to strike the deep within." 
 
 But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and sur- 
 mount them all. 
 
 They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease 
 from thee. 
 
 One of his latest poems celebrates the marvel 
 of "Election Day." The most powerful 
 s^ne in America is not Niagara or Yosemite, 
 but "America's choosing day" — 
 
 The still small voice vibrating, 
 
 The final ballot-shower from East to West — the para- 
 dox and conflict, 
 
 The countless snowflakes falling — (a swordless conflict. 
 
 Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modem 
 Napoleon's) the peaceful choice of all. 
 
 The short poems to the flag are among the 
 choicest gems of these poems. Nothing trite 
 is in them, but always vital, brimful meaning, 
 always the symbol of the nation and a nation 
 committed to humanity and the ideal. 
 
 Thou mental moral orb — thou New, indeed new Spiritual 
 
 World! 
 The Present holds thee not — for such vast growth as 
 
 thine, 
 For such unparalleled flight as thine, such brood as 
 
 thine. 
 The Future only holds thee and can hold thee. 
 
134 Walt Whitman 
 
 O hasten flag of man — O with sure and steady step, 
 
 passing highest flag of kings, 
 Walk supreme to the heaven's mighty symbol — run 
 
 up above them all, 
 Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting! 
 
Comradeship 
 
XII. — Comradeship 
 
 Come, I will make the continent indissoluble; 
 
 I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone 
 
 upon; 
 I will make divine magnetic lands 
 
 With the love of comrades, 
 
 With the life-long love of comrades. 
 
 I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the 
 
 rivers of America, 
 Along the shores of the Great Lakes, and all over the 
 
 prairies; 
 I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each 
 other's necks. 
 
 By the love of comrades, 
 
 By the manly love of comrades. 
 
 For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you, 
 
 "ma femme!" 
 For you, for you I am trilling these songs. 
 
 The circle of Whitman's thought finds its 
 perfect round in the idea of comradeship. 
 
 Abstract approval of men and principles 
 does not satisfy him. He vitalizes all with the 
 warmth and color of personal human affection. 
 
 He has written no love poems of the com- 
 mon sort, but most of his poems are love 
 poems of the most ardent type, addressed, 
 137 
 
138 Walt Whitman 
 
 however, to anyone and everyone — man or 
 woman, coarse or gentle, good or bad. 
 
 This is not the ordinary love to man of the 
 benevolent; it is the passionate fervor of the 
 enamored. 
 
 All the high-minded writers have lauded 
 Friendship. In reading Emerson or Thoreau 
 on Friendship one wonders if they are not 
 after all writing of something too ethereal and 
 mystical for this prosaic sphere. 
 
 Moreover, they confine their expectations of 
 friendship to the very few, and even suggest 
 that it may never be found upon the earth. 
 Whitman draws no boundaries. He not only 
 does not limit the number of his friends, but 
 he expressly invites all men, even the unborn, 
 into the circle of his affections, and urges upon 
 each a like inclusive ardor. And yet it is per- 
 sonal affection he offers and asks for in return. 
 He sees a live oak growing vigorously all alone 
 apart from other trees. He wonders how it 
 can grow and thrive and ' ' utter joyous leaves, ' ' 
 when there was no friendship for it. He is 
 sure he could not. 
 
 When I peruse the conquer'd fame of heroes and the 
 victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the 
 generals, 
 
 Nor the president in his presidency, nor the rich in his 
 great house; 
 
Comradeship 139 
 
 But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was 
 with them, 
 
 How together through life, through dangers, odium, un- 
 changing long and long; 
 
 Through youth and through middle and old age, how un- 
 faltering, how affectionate and faithful they were, 
 
 Then I am pensive — I hastily walk away fill'd with the 
 bitterest envy. 
 
 Whitman keeps the perspective in human 
 values. We are too apt in the hurry of buy- 
 ing and selling, coming and going to forget 
 that nothing really counts except the things 
 that make us live deeply and enjoy truly. 
 
 People come to be a part of the world's fur- 
 niture. They make the wheels go 'round for 
 us in practical affairs. We forget that they 
 are human souls with rich capacities for fellow- 
 ship and sympathy. Many of them belong to 
 us by some kinship of feeling or experience. 
 They would enlarge the heart's boundaries for 
 us, if the stone fences of our indifference did 
 not close us in. 
 
 This poet would raze to the ground all fences. 
 Conventions, formalities, foolishness, which 
 keep us from making the world electric with 
 an all-around hand-clasp, he would away with. 
 
 The measure of a man is found in his ca- 
 pacity for affection, and the wider the range 
 of those who receive this "ocean of love freely 
 poured forth," the greater the man. 
 
I40 Walt Whitman 
 
 His dependence for that glorious America 
 of the future is upon this growing "love of 
 man for his comrades. ' ' 
 
 He dreams that the adoring admiration 
 which he himself possesses for the typical 
 American, in each and every phase, may be- 
 come an enthusiasm common to the whole 
 people. The legal ties of a common govern- 
 ment would then be made vital by the glowing 
 life streams of fraternity. 
 
 Man, fulfilling himself in an organic democ- 
 racy — that democracy incarnated" in America 
 with her rich race inheritance. America, the 
 nation, vivified by citizens bound to each other 
 through a hearty comradeship and all-pervad- 
 ing personal good will — this is the sequence 
 of Whitman's great conceptions. 
 
 I dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks 
 
 of the whole of the rest of the earth; 
 I dream' d that was the new city of friends; 
 Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust 
 
 love — it led the rest; 
 It was seen every hour in the action of the men of the 
 
 city, 
 And in all their looks and words. 
 
 Again he afnrms: 
 
 I believe the main purport of these states is to found' a 
 superb friendship, exalted, previously unknown, 
 
 Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, 
 latent in all men. 
 
Comradeship 141 
 
 Probably nothing is more unique in Whit- 
 man than this faith in the coming lover-bond 
 to unite the children of earth. It is akin, of 
 course, to the old, old story, of the reign of 
 brotherhood destined to come to the earth, 
 but Whitman gives it an utterly new coloring, 
 and it is only upon second thought that one 
 associates it at all with the more general teach- 
 ing. In the poet it is alive and human — a 
 sturdy, wholesome heartiness of good will that 
 carries contagion in its atmosphere. 
 
 This, from the "Drum Taps," is character- 
 istic of this spirit, and voices again, his confi- 
 dence for America : 
 
 Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice, 
 
 Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problem of 
 
 freedom yet; 
 Those who love each other shall become invincible ; 
 They shall yet make Columbia victorious. 
 No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers; 
 If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves 
 
 for me. 
 The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers, 
 The continuance of equality shall be comrades. 
 These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of 
 
 iron; 
 I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers 
 
 tie you. 
 (Were you looking to be held together by lawyers? 
 Or by agreement on a paper? or by arms? 
 Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.) 
 
142 Walt Whitman 
 
 The bugle call to march in untried paths is 
 frequently given. In all the poems which 
 sound the note of courage for innovation there 
 is always a strong ring of joy in companion- 
 ship. 
 
 The poem, "Pioneers," should appeal pecu- 
 liarly to western citizens, who can appreciate 
 all the conditions which he suggests in his 
 symbolism. The comfortable, easy-going 
 paths of conformity seem tame, indeed, in 
 the hearing of this martial strain urging 
 advance. 
 
 Come, my tan-faced children, 
 Follow well in order, get your weapons ready. 
 Have you your pistols? Have you your sharp-edged axes? 
 Pioneers! O, Pioneers! 
 
 For we cannot tarry here; 
 
 We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of 
 
 danger. 
 We, the youthful, sinewy races, all 
 The rest on us depend. 
 
 Pioneers! O, Pioneers! 
 
 O, you youths. Western youths. 
 
 So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and 
 
 friendship. 
 Plain I see you Western youths, all you tramping with 
 
 the foremost. 
 
 Pioneers! O, Pioneers! 
 
Comradeship 143 
 
 Colorado men are we, 
 
 From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the 
 
 high plateaus, 
 From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting 
 
 trail, we come, 
 
 Pioneers 1 O, Pioneers! 
 
 O, resistless, restless race! 
 
 O, beloved race in all! O, my breast aches with tender 
 
 love for all. 
 O, I mourn and yet exult, I am wrapped in love for all, 
 Pioneers! O, Pioneers! 
 
 O, you daughters of the West! 
 O, you young and elder daughters! 
 O, you mothers and you wives! 
 
 Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, 
 Pioneers! O, Pioneers! 
 
 Till with sound of trumpet. 
 
 Far, far off the day break calls — hark ! how loud and clear 
 
 I hear it wind. 
 Swift, to the head of the army! Swift, spring to your 
 
 places, 
 
 Pioneers! O, Pioneers! 
 
 Metaphysical puzzles are usually met by 
 Whitman with some recognition of reality in 
 simple experience. No experience solves so 
 much for him as this fact of human affection. 
 
 When the "terrible doubt" overtakes him 
 regarding the reality of all about, and the 
 verity of identity beyond the grave, then, if 
 
144 Walt Whitman 
 
 he may but be near a friend, he is "charged 
 with untold and untellable wisdom," and re- 
 quires nothing farther. He cannot answer the 
 questions. 
 
 But I walk or sit indifferent, I am completely satisfied, 
 He, ahold of my hand, has completely satisfied me. 
 
 This is not an idle fancy, but has in it pro- 
 found meaning. No facts are so real as the 
 inner facts. What we see or hear we may 
 doubt. What we feel we know to be real. 
 
 In consciousness of love within we strike 
 bed rock. Whatever else is mysterious, upon 
 that we may build. And a world with love 
 in it is worth while, even if a puzzling world. 
 
 Another poem has a professor instruct his 
 class as he closes a course in the great philoso- 
 phies, that underneath all the teachings of all 
 the great thinkers — more fundamental than 
 all 
 
 The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of 
 
 friend to friend, 
 Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and 
 
 parent, 
 Of city for city and land for land. 
 
 In one of Olive Schreiner's dreams she 
 shows us a painter whose wondrous color as- 
 tonished the world. "Where do you get your 
 color from?" the watchers asked, as the pic- 
 
Comradeship 145 
 
 ture grew more marvelously red with rich, 
 warm glow. 
 
 At last the painter died, and then they 
 searched in vain for the pot of wonderful red 
 paint. They did not find it, but upon the 
 breast of the artist they found a scar — an old 
 scar with ragged edges — and still they asked : 
 "Where did he get his color from?" 
 
 Whatever else Walt Whitman has tried to 
 do, no one can doubt that he has written from 
 the inmost sources of his life. He has tried 
 to be all that nature would have him and give 
 back to his larger self — all humanity — the life- 
 blood it loaned him. 
 
 Trickle drops; my blue veins leaving! 
 
 O, drops of me! trickle, slow drops, 
 
 Candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops, 
 
 From wounds made to free you whence you were 
 
 prison'd. 
 From my face, from my forehead and lips. 
 From my breast, from within, where I was conceal'd, 
 
 press forth, red drops, confession drops. 
 Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I 
 
 say, bloody drops. 
 Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten, 
 Saturate them with yourself, all asham'd and wet. 
 Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding 
 
 drops. 
 Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.