Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak
Definitively of these mighty things;
Forgive me that I have not eagles' wings,
That what I want I know not where to seek.
And think that I would not be over meek
In rolling out up-followed thunderings
Even to the steep of Heliconian springs,
Were I of ample strength for such a freak.
Undoubtedly true it is that a spring-like freshness and vigour in Whitman's poems give voice to the life of a strong and youthful nationality; and in grateful appreciation of this we will not stop to inquire to what extent he owes his present popularity to the charm of novelty. But, novel as his style may seem, it is but the re-discovered secret of all true art, the realism that is the ultimation of the soul.
That Goethe was a realist in this sense is shown by the fact that where the emotion was deepest and the moral substance of his writing the most intense and unmistakable, the form was purely objective and classic—dealing with the simplest and commonest of the world's every-day material, and indulging in little or no reflection or introspection. Such is he in the Hermann und Dorothea, at once the most Teutonic and the most Hellenic of modern poems. Of this Professor Dowden says in a recent essay:[5]