WALT WHITMAN.
AUTHOR OF “LEAVES OF GRASS.”
ERHAPS the estimates of critics differ more widely respecting the merits or demerits of Whitman’s verse than on that of any other American or English poet. Certain European critics regard him as the greatest of all modern poets. Others, both in this country and abroad, declare that his so called poems are not poems at all, but simply a bad variety of prose. One class characterizes him the “poet of democracy; the spokesman of the future; full of brotherliness and hope, loving the warm, gregarious pressure of the crowd and the touch of his comrade’s elbow in the ranks.” The other side, with equal assurance, assert that the Whitman culte is the passing fad of a few literary men, and especially of a number of foreign critics like Rosetti, Swinburne and Buchanan, who were determined to find something unmistakably American—that is, different from anything else—and Whitman met this demand both in his personality and his verse. They further declared that his poetry was superlatively egotistical, his principal aim being always to laud himself. This criticism they prove by one of his own poems entitled “Walt Whitman,” in which he boldly preaches his claim to the love of the masses by declaring himself a “typical average man” and therefore “not individual” but “universal.”
Perhaps it is better in the scope of this article to leave Walt Whitman between the fires of his laudators on one side and of his decriers on the other. Certainly the canons of poetic art will never consent to the introduction of some things that he has written into the treasure-house of the muses. For instance,—
“And (I) remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and passed North.”
These worse than prosaic lines do not require a critic to declare them devoid of any element of poetry. But on the other hand, that Whitman had genius is undeniable. His stalwart verse was often beautifully rhythmic and the style which he employed was nobly grand. Time will sift the wheat from the chaff, consuming the latter and preserving the golden grains of true poetry to enrich the future garners of our great American literature. No one of the many tributes to Lincoln, not even Lowell’s noble eulogy, is more deeply charged with exalted feeling than is Whitman’s dirge for Abraham Lincoln written after the death of the President, in which the refrain “O Captain, my Captain,” is truly beautiful. Whitman was no mean master in ordinary blank verse, to which he often reverted in his most inspiring passages.
One of the chief charms of Whitman’s poetry consists in the fact that the author seems to feel, himself, always happy and cheerful, and he writes with an ease and abandon that is pleasant to follow. Like one strolling about aimlessly amid pleasing surroundings, he lets his fancy and his senses play and records just what they see or dictate. This characteristic, perhaps, accounts for the fact that his single expressions are often unsurpassed for descriptive beauty and truth, such as the reference to the prairies, “where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles.” Whoever used a more original and striking figure? Many of his poems strikingly remind one in their constructions (but not in religious fervor) to the Psalms of David. There is also often a depth of passion and an intoxication in his rhythmic chant that is found perhaps in no other writer, as this specimen, personifying night, will illustrate:
“Press close, bare-bosomed night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing night!
Night of the South wind! Night of the few larger stars! still, nodding night! Mad, naked, summer night!”
Again, Whitman was always hopeful. Like Emerson, he renounced all allegiance to the past, and looked confidently to the future. And this reminds us that Emerson wrote the introductory to the first edition of “Leaves of Grass,” which suggests that that writer may have exerted no small influence in forming Whitman’s style, for the vagueness of his figures, his disconnected sentences, and occasionally his verbiage, are not unlike those of the “Concord Prophet.” Again, the question arises, did he not seek, like Emerson, to be the founder of a school of authorship? His friendliness toward young authors and his treatment of them indicate this, and the following he has raised up attests the success he attained, whether sought or unsought. But the old adage, “like king like people,” has a deal of truth in it; and as Whitman was inferior to Emerson in the exaltation of his ideals, and the unselfishness and sincerity of his nature, so his followers must fall short of the accomplishments of those who sat at the feet of “the good and great Emerson.”
Walt Whitman was born at West Hills, Long Island, May 31, 1819, and was educated at the public schools of Brooklyn and New York. Subsequently he followed various occupations, among which were those of printer, teacher, carpenter, journalist, making in the meantime extended tours in Canada and the United States. During the Civil War he served as a volunteer nurse in the army hospitals, and at the close was appointed as government clerk at Washington. In 1873 he had a severe paralytic attack, which was followed by others, and he took up his residence in Camden, New Jersey, where he died in 1892. He was never married.
Mr. Whitman’s principal publications are “Leaves of Grass,” issued first in 1855, but he continued to add to and revise it, the “finished edition,” as he called it, appearing in 1881. Succeeding this came “Drum Taps,” “Two Rivulets,” “Specimen Days and Collect,” “November Boughs,” “Sands at Seventy.” “Democratic Vista” was a prose work appearing in 1870. “Good-Bye, My Fancy,” was his last book, prepared between 1890 and his death. His complete poems and prose have also been collected in one volume.
Two recent biographies of the poet have been published: one by John Burroughs, entitled “Walt Whitman, a Study;” the other, “Walt Whitman, the Man,” by Thomas Donaldson. The titles indicate the difference in the two treatments. Both biographers are great admirers of Whitman.
DAREST THOU NOW, O SOUL.
The following poems are from “Leaves of Grass” and are published by special permission of Mr. Horace L. Trauble, Mr. Whitman’s literary executor.
AREST thou now, O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
I know it not, O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.
Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.
Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space, O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil, O soul.
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
IN ALL, MYSELF.
FROM “SONG OF MYSELF.”
The following lines have been commented upon as presenting a strange and erratic combination of the most commonplace prose with passionate and sublime poetic sentiment.
AM the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me;
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.
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.
I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
We have had ducking and deprecation about enough,
I show that size is only development.
Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?
It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there everyone, and still pass on.
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-blossom’d night—press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of the South winds—night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.
Smile, O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of the departed sunset—earth of the mountain misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of the shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.
Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable, passionate love.
OLD IRELAND.
AR hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful mother,
Once a queen, now lean and tatter’d seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel’d round her shoulders,
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent, she too long silent, mourning her shrouded hope and heir,
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow because most full of love.
Yet a word, ancient mother,
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground with forehead between your knees;
O you need not sit there veil’d in your old white hair so dishevel’d,
For know you the one you mourn is not in that grave;
It was an illusion, the son you love was not really dead;
The Lord is not dead, he is risen again, young and strong, in another country,
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp by the grave,
What you wept for was translated, pass’d from the grave;
The winds favor’d and the sea sail’d it;
And now, with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.
PÆAN OF JOY.
FROM “THE MYSTIC TRUMPETER.”
Reference has been made to the similarity in style manifested in some of Whitman’s poems to the style of the Psalmist. Certain parts of the two selections following justify the criticism.
OW trumpeter for thy close,
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet,
Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope,
Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future,
Give me for once its prophecy and joy.
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!
