This is not poetry of the tinkling rhyme, and those who require to hear the changes rung on the old, old peal of bells—love, dove, heart, part,—must seek elsewhere than in the writings of Walt Whitman. Lord Tennyson considers him a true poet, so did Swinburne till he took to renouncing all the opinions of his youth, and turned from the praise of revolution, and the anticipation of the happy time when “Prince that clogs and priest that clings, Be cast as weeds upon the dunghill of dead things,” to become the reciter of Jubilee odes. Here are a few extracts from his verses “To Walt Whitman in America:”—
Send but a song oversea for us,
Heart of their hearts who are free,
Heart of their singer, to be for us
More than our singing can be;
Ours, in the tempest at error,
With no light but the twilight of terror;
Send us a song oversea!
O strong-winged soul with prophetic
Lips hot with the bloodbeats of song,