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.